Succubus
by Myshu
Summary: A succubus lands in the underground. If she wants to get out, she's going to have to make a bad deal. ...and possibly break every rule she has.
1. A Bad Joke

**A/N** : ...Somebody should probably stop me.  
(Rated for bad language and eventually some weird stuff. No straight-up smut, I promise.)

* * *

The weirdest part, she thought, was that she was getting paid to do it.

Not that she ever did this for free—there was always compensation of some kind, from hard cash to more mundane currencies. A client once paid her with a "po boy" sandwich, which should have been an insult, but she was hungry at the time and mercenary enough to do a small job for it.

Those were always direct exchanges, though: a client approaches her, offers payment, and receives her... services. Person A performs job for client B and gets paid. There was very little confusion regarding how each side was benefiting from the deal.

For this deal, however, everything was confusing. The man who approached her in that alley behind the hotel didn't want her services—not for himself, anyway.

 _'I was told you could help me.'_ Or, she was told so by a couple of stoner idiot felines across the street. She was scraping the bottom of the barrel for help in this god-forsaken place.

 _'You want to go to the surface.'_

 _'I want to get the hell out of here.'_

 _'You don't look like you need help reaching the barrier. Why don't you give it a shot?'_

 _'You think I didn't already fucking try that? UP is not a goddamn option.'_ The fall back down had hurt quite a bit.

 _'You have another way, but it's not working, is it? You want me to fix it.'_

 _'You're pretty damn intuitive. You an em-reader, too?'_

 _'I will help. What do you have to offer me?'_

She told him. An immediate disinterest ( _'Don't you FUCKING judge me. It's the only thing I've got down here.'_ ) was replaced by a long, hard look at something... crazier.

He told her what he wanted, instead. She asked why in the world he'd want such a thing.

 _'It's an experiment,'_ he said ghoulishly, grin cut in plaster with the elegance of a serrated knife. The mask and bowler hat left all his motives to the imagination. He paid her half up front (and it was a lot—the bag was dripping with gold coins) and simply said pick one.

 _Pick one_ , she ruminated, rapping her claws on a tall mug as she squatted in a booth at a local pub.

GRILLBY'S was a gross place to wait, much less eat. The dogs playing "Go Fish" around the next table were gross. The grease and slobber on the tacky floor was gross. The fish-lipped, scaly old man eating chili fries out of a paper trough was gross. The bird slouched in a stained white shirt and picking its beak with a primary feather was gross. Even the air smelled like deep fried gross, but the only thing more gross was the permafrost outside, so she pulled the hood of her cloak over her brow and tried to be invisible.

She bent a look into the mug of "Shocker Topper" she ordered. The foam never died down, and it still tasted like the sweat of an orange rind filtered through a gym sock.

Everything she'd seen about this world had been weird, gross and insular. The people even called themselves _monsters_ , as if that's a label worthy of identifying one's race and culture. She didn't mean to spend a lot of time acclimatizing to Snowdin's arctic climate and bizarre denizens, though. She just had to do this job, and maybe the shady man will have an answer to her predicament.

Or he's just screwing with-

"I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU'RE DRAGGING ME BACK TO THIS PIGSTY OF AN ESTABLISHMENT."

"you told Lesser Dog you'd play cards with him today."

Like a bad joke, two skeletons walked into the bar.

The taller of the pair swatted his red scarf behind him with an indignant bark. "WHAT? WHY WOULD I AGREE TO ANYTHING LIKE THAT? I'M FAR TOO BUSY. THIS RUGGEDLY HANDSOME ROYAL-GUARDSMAN-TO-BE ISN'T GOING TO TRAIN HIMSELF. OR GET MORE RUGGED."

The short one stuck his hands into the pockets of his blue hoodie and shrugged. "oh, right. I was the one who told him you'd play cards."

The taller's, "WHAT-" was drowned by scuffling chairs as the pack of dogs gravitated towards the pair. Most of them were wearing large armor plating that sounded like a kitchen drawer turning inside-out as the pack moved in.

"Sans!" exclaimed one, nearly biting his own lolling tongue. "You brought Papyrus. Are we getting bones today?" The others' ears perked at the prospect.

"Bone?"  
"Bone~"  
"Bone?!"

The taller skeleton wagged his leg furiously, one of the dog's canines already stapled to his shin. He turned and wobbled back out the door, Lesser Dog in tow. "NO, I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR YOUR FLEA-BITTEN AMUSEMENT! LEAVE MY POOR BONES ALONE!"

"huh, i guess that training's paying off. you're looking more rugged by the minute, brother!" the short one called after him. The other dogs raised some chortle-like barks to the ceiling and returned to their table of cards.

She watched the remaining skeleton walk to the bar and wave down the proprietor with mixed bemusement. _Two skeletons_ , the man had said. _Pick one._

She didn't know where to begin. She wasn't sure what she was expecting—perhaps not _literal skeletons_ , made of real bones and walking and talking around. As a traveler she'd seen many strange things, though—magical and not—and she could probably guess these things' true nature if she studied them hard enough.

Necromancy was on the table—but the reanimated dead usually didn't hang around very long without a puppeteer, and even then they weren't very... lively.  
A powerful spirit could hold on to a vessel for a while, but it was a less fruitful venture for the spirit _after decomposition._ Still, while digging through a nearby garbage dump she thought she heard a stuffed dummy talking, of all things, so—possession, maybe.

A third possibility—one that happened to mind as soon as she saw the pinpricks of light in that skeleton's eye sockets—was golems. Back where she came from, any enchanter worth his salt could create a golem. They were useful in a variety of industries, were easy to feed and upkeep, loved to work, and could last practically forever, depending on the components and strength of the enchanter's seal. _Human goddamn remains_ had to be one of the most disgusting things to build a golem from, but possible...?

She wasn't sure. They weren't the least biologically sound monster she'd seen in these parts, at any rate. Hell, the barkeep (Grillby himself, she presumed) was _actually made of fire_ , for all appearances, so she couldn't rule out even the oddest explanations.

However, this was going to make her job difficult. A human's soul was easy to play, but these things were so far nested in the _maybe/other_ category that she'd have to come up with something truly inventive to even get her foot in the door. And then...?  
God, she didn't want to think about the next part.

"Fucking hell," she grumbled. If the shady man was screwing with her, he paid a lot of gold for the jape. She took another (terrible) sip from her mug. Well, a mark was a mark. She'd just do this job... somehow.

 _Pick one._

The short skeleton sitting at the bar was served the sloppiest blob of a hamburger she'd ever seen. He held it up like a raw fish, unhinged his jaw, swallowed the whole mess and still got grease all over his cheekbones and brow, even after wiping his fingers on his pants.

From outside, the other skeleton's whinging filtered through the door. "NO, YOU CAN'T HAVE *THAT* ONE! I NEED ALL MY RIB BONES FOR MY CALISTHENICS! IF I CAN CURL ALL THE WAY INTO A BALL, WHAT'S THE POINT? ... NO, I WILL NOT LICK MY OWN—THAT'S DISGUSTING! DO I LOOK LIKE A DOG? WHAT- NO, GET BACK HERE! IF YOU BURY THAT BONE IN THAT MUD, I'LL BURY MY BOOT IN YOUR-" There was a sharp squeak, followed by crunching ice. "-OW!"

This was going to be a tough choice.


	2. Entering and Breaking

They had a house. Of course.

Like most of the residences in Snowdin, it looked pretty cozy. It had two stories, a steep roof to ward off heavy snow, a pair of quaint mailboxes, and some strung lights to make the porch look inviting.

It was probably warm, too, but she wouldn't quite know, hunkered outside in the bushes. She had waited some hours for those skeletons to leave the pub. The tall one ( _Papyrus_ , she learned) finally did after losing patience with the dog pack over cards ( _"THERE IS NO ROYAL FLUSH IN GO FISH,"_ was one of the finer points of the argument), and she stalked him to whatever skeletal lair these things spent their nights in.

...Which was apparently a nice little house. Nothing weird about that, she supposed.

She took time to study him: his tall bearings, his loping walk, his cartoonish gloves and strange, eggshell-round suit of armor. For a skeleton, he seemed made of rubber. She'd spent a fair part of the night wondering how bone could be malleable enough to wiggle, wobble and make facial expressions. Their uncannily lifelike nature was a tough trick for golems, and it still didn't make sense that someone would build them that way. _What was their purpose...?_

Lamplight marked Papyrus's trek through the house, and one of the upstairs windows remained lit for a long time. The window on the other side, however, was dark.

The other dilemma she had been sitting on was how to initiate this job. She was used to clients approaching _her_ , not the other way around. She didn't want to be a _complete creep_ , but she didn't make a move to introduce herself at the pub, and outside of her profession she wasn't much of a "people person," really.

"What the hell am I doing...?" The only kind of person she was right now was cold, and her sigh produced a puff of misty air. She couldn't camp outside all night and hope to get any answers. She needed to get in there and see what she was really dealing with. If she was lucky, she could get close enough to do a soul reading.

Getting in was the easy part; she had a natural talent for it. She alighted on the dark windowsill and slipped her claws under the frame. It wasn't even locked, just a little icy, and after delicately scooping the snow out of the way she detected the whistle-like snoring of someone within.

 _So they do sleep_ , she mused, thankful for that—or there was somebody else in this house she had to worry about. She stuck her head inside.

It was all... _classically villainous_ of her, she supposed. She used to read bedtime stories about these types of things, crawling through windows in the thick of night to lay curses on sleeping children, or do whatever wicked things people who crawl in through windows do. She couldn't help the trope, but she had an idea to play into it. It would make a better sell to her mark, if she were something more fantastic than just some weirdo breaking into bedrooms.

Draconic eyes adjusted quickly to the dark. There wasn't a lot to see. There was a lamp with a bent stalk on a plain wooden dresser, and in the opposite corner what looked and sounded like an electric fan, filling the air with white noise. Shadowy lumps of either crumpled paper or clothing spotted the hard floor, which her toes touched without a sound.

Standing in the middle of the room, now, she found its loud sleeper, sprawled on his back on a stripped mattress near the window. She blinked; when did the short guy get here? He wasn't following Papyrus, and she'd been watching the house ever since. By whatever means he was here now, wearing the same shorts and hoodie he wore to the pub, only a pair of house slippers kicked off his bony feet and left by the mattress. His eye-sockets were closed (physically impossible) and his small chest rose and fell with long, deep breaths (also impossible, but whatever—she stopped trying to break her brain on the lacking physiology.)

More impressive, somehow, was the small vortex of... trash? Loose paper, silverware and a t-shirt were swept into a small tornado that she initially mistook for a fan. It was rooted to the spot and didn't seem to be powered by anything but sheer nonsense.

She was simply admiring either the good science or bad magic of it when a glint of brass flew by her head and crashed into the wall.

"oops. sorry, i usually mean to hit intruders when i do that."

She quickly noted the object that clattered to the floor (a trombone) and turned to the speaker. He was sitting up in the bed, tiny bright pupils boring through the dark and directly into her.

"I'm not here to hurt you." When the incredulous stare from the bed persisted, she appended, "...Or rob you." _There's nothing in this shithole to steal, anyway. Maybe the lamp._

"huh. coulda fooled me. most visitors try the door, first." Just like at Grillby's, he had a voice like an unwavering yawn. It made her wonder if he was even awake. ...Or ever awake.

She was only half-expecting to get caught. The best case was that she could study her potential mark a little more closely as he slept, and get a read on the kind of soul she was going to manipulate. The worst case, as it unfolded now, was that she'd have to make the sell right away. She'd (partly) rehearsed this in her head already, so she might as well go for it.

She tugged on the string of her cloak until rolled it off her shoulders. The fabric slid away like silk from bare shoulders and hitched briefly on folded scale and bone before pooling at her feet. "I'm not most visitors."

He cocked his head to a curious angle and didn't say anything for a minute. She let him get a good look: the tall, lean muscle, the smooth skin, the dark scales and serpentine tail, and the wings—her pride, those wings, taut cords of dragon-bone and wind-whipped leather. She shifted slightly on her feet, sinking the claws of her toes into the floor and folding her arms under her breasts. Without the cloak, she wasn't wearing much (half-breeds disliked layers), so the straps of her bikini stood out pretty well, even in the dark.

"...huh," he said. "so, what're you, some kind of vampire? aren't you supposed to be upside-down?"

"What? No, you dolt. I'm a-" She hesitated. The best lies had bit of truth in them—or even a lot of truth. "I'm a succubus."

She waited for a reaction. His brows climbed up a notch, but his mouth didn't twitch.

"Do you even know what that is?" she had to ask.

"nope."

She sighed, fighting to present this seriously. "A succubus is a..." She paused again. She was about to use the word 'demon,' and she didn't know why that shocked her, but she reconsidered the term for something... friendlier. "...it's like a fairy. I feed on a special type of energy."

He snorted—a peculiar whistle through an empty nose. "what, like magic? you expect me to believe in fairy tales? get real." He flopped back onto the mattress, going to sleep.

Well, that was the most nonchalant way to handle an intruder ever. "Hey! You...!" _fat little shit_ , she didn't say. "I need your help, here."

He turned over, facing the wall as one hand listlessly flopped towards the door. "there's the exit. don't wake my brother, or he'll be mad."

She scowled. This fucking guy was too lazy to even kick her out properly. She stared at the motionless lump on the bed for minute, and then a minute more, almost daring him to do something—and then, finally, he did.

He started snoring again.

Her scowl pursed into a plain frown. She'd gone too far to simply walk out. If he was actually asleep... she couldn't be angry at an opportunity. She tested a step towards the bed. And another. Nothing but gently _whooshing_ trash-nado and a light snore.

She just needed a reading. She'd barely need to touch him—he wouldn't even notice.

Kneeling down, she quietly pressed her weight onto the edge of the mattress, finding a resting pose that would let her focus. Claw-tips sought the hood of his jacket and oh-so-lightly traced the contours of the fabric until settling pin-like along the (surprisingly) soft curve of his back. She closed her eyes and breathed—quiet, gentle—until the rhythm aligned with his, slow and easy.

Then the shade of her soul reached through and touched his.

Days ago, while she was down in a dump (sifting through waterlogged debris and cursing into the mist), she saw some lizard kids playing around the top of a waterfall. They didn't see her, too far above and absorbed in their game, until one of them must have slipped on a rock, or was pushed, perhaps—it was a long fall. She never saw what started it, but she saw how it ended.

The kid tumbled, struck bottom, and shattered. At a blink she could see through his gossamer aura and watch the core of his soul crack in half, just before his whole being dissipated like dandelion seeds. The children on the clifftop were shocked, staring down like saucer-eyed gargoyles, and then slunk away into the wild.

It was surreal. These things, _monsters_ , had souls of chalk, pale and brittle and tasteless. All of them—from a wispy insect to a great maned serpent, no matter how fearsome—had the spiritual constitution of rice paper, rent asunder by a single strong blow. She could see it in their auras—a sea of blandness—bleached, fragile.

Skeletal. Bones could only be _so white_ , though, and maybe if she reached in and dug around she'd find... find... _oh_.

The phantom of her hand touched a... fleshy membrane? She thought she'd have to get to the marrow to find the veins of his aura, or maybe dive right through the ribs, because that was just something spirits _did_ when they animated something: all the raw stuff was either infused into the material so it was hard to extract, or bundled into a "core," like a ghostly heart.

Her expectations were repelled right away, though. He had more of a spiritual _exoskeleton_ than a visible core, which was a weird configuration for a human, even. Her focus drifted, exploring a little further, fingertips skimming the surface of something new and interesting. Like all the other monsters, so far no flavor to his aura, but the shape was still fascinating. She could explore it all night, possibly, and not find a way to penetrate this shell... Maybe not without force, or a very precise-

She stopped to notice that she was breathing faster. When connected to another soul (even superficially, as she was) that typically meant the owner of THAT soul was breathing faster, and if he wasn't breathing slowly anymore, that could mean-

Suddenly, she was on the wall.

It happened so quickly that she barely registered the _crunch_ of one of her wings giving out between her own shoulder and a hard slab of wood paneling. Once her head stopped spinning, she was looking at the bleak grey night through a skylight. Then she realized that this house didn't _have_ a skylight, that she was staring _straight_ rather than _up,_ and that she was splayed painfully flat by an invisible force that felt like the wrong kind of gravity.

She jerked at her arm, and then leg, but neither gave the way she wanted them to, and a steep sense of panic was curling around her collarbone and crushing her neck.

 _Fuck fuck fuck fuck she couldn't breathe she couldn't oh FUCK that son of a bitch was AWAKE-_

He was only sitting up, and would seem barely moved from his slumber if not for the glaring cyan burning from one eye socket and painting his outstretched hand a haunted hue. When he flexed his fingers, the invisible vice around her throat tightened, blurring her vision and making her gag.

He was left-handed (he leaned over his right shoulder to stretch his fingers out), she observed absurdly, over any of the more pressing matters at that particular moment—such as the possibility of one of her ribs being cracked, or that she was starting to see stars, or especially that a skeleton was _holding her to the wall with the power of his goddamn mind._

All she could do was curse her carelessness, remind herself why she only let marks come to HER, remind herself why she only practiced this shit on HUMANS (or an equivalent), and start to get a _very real idea_ of which of the two brothers was more dangerous.

Above the panic she was able to choke out, "What... the hell... are you...?!"

"those are nice wings," he said. The light from the window crossed his frozen grin with sinister accents. " **you must like flying.** "

And out the window she went.


	3. A Riddle

The nurse finished splinting her wing by giving the bandage a quick tug. It snapped back, making her wince. "There you go, darling. Now don't use that wing for a while, okay?"

"Great, thanks," she muttered. She tipped the nurse (a snake in a powder blue coat, embroidered with wings on the back and shoulders. Its arms and legs looked like puppet limbs) by dropping a coin in its front pocket. She then slid off the examining table and walked out.

Aside from a broken wing bone and her pride, the only other thing to take a blow from her rough exit from the skeleton's house was her purse. It got torn open on a tree branch as she crashed into the woods, and she spent hours picking up a trail of coins in the snow and pine needles that felt like a mile long. Tired and half frozen (she'd ruefully dropped her cloak in the bedroom) she slept with the trees that night and then limped back to the hotel in the morning.

It was twice as exhausting to trek across the underground without flying, and by the time she got to the hotel it was dark again. Luckily, all the coin she salvaged could still afford a bed and a trip to the hotel nurse. As soon as she got wrapped up, she stormed outside and around the back of the building, seeking out her client.

A more disreputable-looking alleyway couldn't be found in the underground. A steam pipe made sure the bricks and pavement were always sticky, the overflowing dumpster made sure it was always filthy, and a whirring box fan in an above ventilation shaft made sure to block the street light in squeaky, intermittent flickers.

She slapped the button that had been stuck to the wall with a splash of mortar. Around it was drawn a crude box and the words "ring for service" in yellow chalk. She crossed her arms and waited in front of the metal door she saw him take at their last meeting.

Just to defy her expectations, a subtle grind of metal and a flicker of orange light appeared around the corner, and then the shady man stepped into view from another way.

" _You_ ," she hissed. He didn't even come out to face her directly, which fueled her irritation.

He folded his slender arms behind his back, unperturbed. "Good to see you again. Did you pick one?"

"Not yet," she said abrasively. "My first reading _didn't go fucking well_. What the hell ARE those guys?"

He chortled. "You're not afraid of them, are you? They're just monsters, like everyone else."

"Bull and shit. I've seen the auras of all the freaky-ass monsters around here, and these guys aren't like that. I don't know if they're constructs or _demons_ or whatever-the-fuck, but you could have warned me, you asshat."

"Perceptive, aren't you? Heh, heh heh..."

She bristled. "Is this funny? Really? I broke a wing, and you think I can just laugh it the fuck off? I had to walk all the way here. It sucked, and you're going to give me a damn explanation."

"Be persistent. One of them will surely yield."

"Ugh." She was hoping for some answers, not a pep-talk. "But WHY the skeletons? Are you sure I can't mark _anyone_ else? There's hundreds of monsters down here."

"You said why. I don't want a monster. Let me ask you: what is the most powerful emotion?"

"...What."

"Would you say anger? Joy? Fear? Those things that burn bright and hot in your heart? Let me tell you: the most powerful emotion is the coldest of all and weakest of all."

She shook her head and thrashed her spare wing, vexed by his non-answers. "What, now a riddle? You trying to lay some 'all you need is love' philosophical horse shit on my desk, like you're not making my job hard enough?"

"It will make sense before this is done." He turned away and took three smooth steps back around the corner. "Return to Snowdin. Come back when you've picked one."

She charged after him. "Ohhh, you dodgy, slick-suited, pasty-ass drama mask mother-"

He had disappeared before she could finish the expletive. "...fucker."


	4. A Challenge

She set out for Snowdin the following day. A particularly damp part of the excursion had her using her good wing for an umbrella, and she was watching her step on a wooden bridge and trying to keep water out of her eyes when another pair of sheet shuffled past, offering a brisk, "PARDON ME, THANK YOU."

She stopped, held her wing over her brow and squinted at the passing figure. "Son of a bitch," she uttered. There Papyrus went, strutting away. Seizing this opportunity, she turned on her heels and followed him.

Papyrus arrived at a house that looked like an igloo coupled with a piranha. The door was fashioned into a set of clamped jaws, and even the windows had an aggressive slant.

She stopped at a distance, resting her bare feet in a patch of soggy grass, while Papyrus knocked on the door for what felt like three minutes.

"CAPTAIN UNDYNE! WOULD YOU PLEASE ANSWER THE DOOR? I KNOW YOU'RE HOME BECAUSE YOUR LIGHTS ARE ON."

The answer was a fist punching out one of the window panes from the inside, letting broken glass decorate the moss, clovers and crushed soda cans skirting the house. A round, blue, fin-framed head then poked out. It grinned toothily at the visitor and snapped in a (barely) feminine voice, **"What?!"**

"AH, THERE YOU ARE." Papyrus dropped to one knee on the doormat, as if to serenade the window, but instead came out his usual brash rhetoric. "IT IS I, THE STRONG AND LOYAL PAPYRUS! I'M HERE TO SUBMIT MY APPLICATION FOR THE ROYAL GUARD."

 **"Again? Didn't you already put one in last week?"**

Papyrus eagerly rose to his feet. "I DID! I JUST OFFERING YOU A SPARE, IN CASE YOU MISPLACED THE FIRST ONE. I KNOW PAPERWORK CAN BE VERY TRICKY."

Undyne's expression squished with maniacal glee. **"Heh! It sure can! That's why I throw all mine in the trash!"**

"THAT SEEMS LIKE A TERRIBLE WAY TO MANAGE YOUR BILLS, THOUGH." He looked nonplussed. "WAIT—ARE YOU SAYING YOU THREW AWAY MY APPLICATION?"

 **"Of course not! In the Royal Guard we use all paper for target practice. I assure you it felt good to tear it to pieces on the end of my spear! Nya hah!"**

"OH DEAR, BUT MY STATIONERY WAS PERFECT! IT WAS NOT MEANT FOR TEARING, ALTHOUGH I'M SURE YOUR SPEAR COULD ADMIRE PERFECTION WHEN IT SAW IT. ARE YOU SURE YOU WON'T RECONSIDER MY APPLICATION? I COULD HELP YOU SKEWER IT, EVEN. I'VE BEEN PRACTICING MY SKEWERING!"

The head in the window twisted to a unnatural degree and pursed bright red lips in thought. **"Hmm... tempting, but... nope!"** Undyne then disappeared into the house, gurgling with laughter. **"Try again next week, loser! Nya!"**

Papyrus hung his head. "ALAS, THE DOOR HAS BEEN CLOSED TO ME. OR IT REMAINS CLOSED, RATHER. BUT THERE'S STILL A WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY, EVEN IF I'M TOO LARGE TO FIT THROUGH IT." He gave the broken window a critical look. "THE GREAT PAPYRUS WON'T GIVE UP! I'LL PROVE MY WORTH TO THE ROYAL GUARD, YET. UNDYNE WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO SEE HOW PERFECTLY WINDOW-SHAPED I AM!"

She couldn't hold it in any longer. "God, you're a tool."

"EH?" Papyrus spun around and noticed her. "ACTUALLY, I'M A SKELETON. HELLO THERE! I DON'T BELIEVE WE'VE MET. IT MUST BE QUITE AN HONOR FOR YOU! SURELY YOU'VE COME TO CONGRATULATE ME ON THE EVE OF MY BEING ACCEPTED INTO HIS MAJESTY'S ROYAL GUARD."

She snickered. "Tch, yeah, I do get all my kicks from watching men's dreams get crushed on doorsteps."

He narrowed a look of confusion at her. "YOU HAVE VERY PECULIAR TASTES. I FEEL BAD FOR THE MEN YOU WATCH. DO YOU HAVE A MORE FAVORABLE VIEWING OF SKELETONS?"

"Well..." She danced with a fresh idea, taking on a coquettish curl from her neck to her tail. "I am in the market. In fact, I think I can do you a favor."

His (already bone-white) expression brightened. "REALLY? I'M LISTENING..."

"You're looking to impress that fish lady in there, right? I can help you do that."

"EXCUSE YOU. UNDYNE SHOULD AT LEAST BE ADDRESSED AS 'CAPTAIN FISH LADY'."

"Whatever. Do you think she'll be impressed if you show off your skills by... say, beating me in a duel?"

"OH? YOU'RE CHALLENGING ME? TO ACTUAL COMBAT?"

"That is what I am saying, yes."

Papyrus thumbed his chin. "HMM, PUMMELING AN UNARMED LADY IN FRONT OF UNDYNE'S HOUSE IN A TEST OF WARRIOR BRAVADO? ...SHE'LL LOVE IT! I MEET YOUR CHALLENGE!"

"That's the spirit. In fact, if you can beat me... I'll read your fortune."

"UNDYNE WILL BEHOLD MY EXCEPTIONAL SKILLS AND I GET A FORTUNE? THERE'S NOTHING TO LOSE! HOW SHALL WE BEGIN?"

Had she lacked experience in this sort of thing, it would have been a brilliantly stupid plan. As it was—since she had been raised in a militant society and received self-defense training from the age she quit crapping her pants—it was only a sensibly stupid plan. She squared into a fighting stance (shifting after a moment to favor her uninjured wing) and sized up the field. The ground was puddle-slick, and they had some spare yards before the ground dropped into impenetrable marsh. Without the mobility of flight, she'd have to manage space carefully. This guy looked like he had the combat prowess of a slinky toy, but she underestimated his brother and that turned out pretty fun, so... no taking chances with this one.

Papyrus produced a length of human bone from a non-existent scabbard on his back and brandished it like a sword. "ALRIGHTY, LET'S SEE HOW YOU WARM UP TO MY REGULAR ATTACK!"

She ducked around a swing that cut the air with such force it made her ears ring. Alarmed, she staggered back to get more room to breathe. _Well, either this guy doesn't know his own strength, or he's really not fucking around._

The bone swipes came one, two, and then again—they were powerful, but slow and easy for her nimble figure to navigate. Just to test her boundaries, she pivoted into an opening and struck the solid plate of his back with her heel. He stumbled forward, but recovered quickly. "WOW, DID YOU SEE HOW I TOOK THAT BLOW WITHOUT BUDGING AN INCH? ALL THE MILK I'VE BEEN DRINKING MUST BE PAYING-" She came in with a left hook that aborted his thought. It missed, but drew a satisfying, "YIKES."

Papyrus jumped back and struck a posture that almost looked crafty. "YOUR ATTACKS ARE QUITE WORTHY! IN FACT, THEY'RE ONLY A LITTLE RUSTY. YOU COULD USE SOME GUIDANCE TO POLISH THEM INTO A TRUE WARRIOR'S ATTACK. ALLOW ME TO SHOW YOU...!"

She braced for another huge swing. It sprang for her in a streak of wild blue, she pounced out of the way-

-and got clocked hard enough to half-plant her face in the mud. She sputtered and blinked until the impossible angle of attack stopped rattling her brain. Did she just get hit with a second, invisible bone?

"NYEH, HEH HEH! WHAT DID YOU THINK OF MY SPECIAL ATTACK? IT HITS YOU IF YOU TRY TO MOVE, YOU SEE. IT IS A MOST CLEVER RUSE, ISN'T IT?"

She hissed and got up on her knees, pawing at the caked mud around her nose. Above her, Papyrus swung his weapon dramatically.

"DO YOU YIELD?" He then bent a little closer to whisper oh-not-subtly, "HOW DID THAT SOUND? I THINK IT'S COMMANDING. SHE LIKES CONFIDENCE."

She coughed up a strand of grass and grimaced. "Shit... yeah, yeah, I yield."

He hitched the bone on his shoulder and posed triumphantly. "SPLENDID." He checked the closed door behind him and then immediately swung back around, as if pretending he hadn't. "GEE, IT MUST HAVE BEEN SWELL TO WATCH ME FIGHT. I'M SURE SOMEBODY WHO LIVES IN A HOUSE NEARBY AGREES!"

A warbling belch and bark of laughter issued within the house.

She scooped a nearby puddle of (slightly less rancid) water into her face to wash away most of the mud, huffed and stood up. "Right then. You win, so I suppose I owe you your reward."

"REWARD? OH, RIGHT, MY FORTUNE! HOW EXCITING. DO YOU READ TEA LEAVES OR PALMS? I'M A LITTLE SHORT ON PALMS, YOU SEE."

She signaled for him to approach. Not suspicious in the slightest, he did so. _Sometimes it's a blessing to meet people this gullible._ He was taller than she realized, standing closely over her by nearly a whole head. The black slits of his eye sockets blinked ( _ugh, still weird_ ) at her with unchecked curiosity.

She rapped on his chest piece with her knuckles. The sound reported an unrecognizable alloy—something between metal and plastic. Looking him over, she noted that the parts not armor-clad were clothed in a sturdy-looking material. _It'll be tough to get a reading through any of this._

"ADMIRING MY BATTLE ARMOR, ARE YOU? IT'S CUSTOM-MADE, YOU SEE. I'D GIVE YOU THE NAME OF MY TAILOR, BUT I CAN'T QUITE REMEMBER. HMM, ODD."

His brow furrowed with a frown, discomfited by the lapse in memory. "WHAT IF HE WASN'T EVEN A TAILOR? WHAT IF HE WAS A COBBLER? OR A BLACKSMITH...?! WHAT AN EMBARRASSING MISTAKE FOR YOU, IF I RECOMMENDED SOMEBODY AND YOU CALLED HIM BY THE WRONG PROFESSION? YOU'D HAVE TO APOLOGIZE PROF-"

She clapped her hand completely over his bare forehead. "Shush." Mercifully, this shut him up. "I'll just have to use your head. Hold still."

 _Close your eyes. Breathe. Focus._ She opened her magic and slipped out of her skin.

If Papyrus's soul was anything like his brother's, she expected a coat of resistance right away—but it wasn't there. Her shade plunged straight through, and what she touched was so shocking it ground her teeth and knocked her eyes open wide.

It was like sticking one's hand into a box of rattlesnakes made of firecrackers. She didn't find a heart of any kind, but rather a nebulous pool of crackling energy, repelling her and sucking her in at once. Sparking phosphorus and candle wicks caught her arm and raced up her spine like lightning, rooting her feet to the spot and scorching her mind.

His spirit was pure pandemonium, unreadable at its core. At an instant she wanted to break away, but her hand was glued to the hot stove of his aura and it was _pretty fucking painful_. Her mind was stuck on breathless a loop of _oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit_ until—finally, she gasped and stopped standing.

"OH MY," was the last thing she heard before blacking out.


	5. Term of Endearment

She woke up with a headache, a crick in her neck and a throbbing in her broken wing. She groaned and rolled over, only to flop out of a lumpy couch and gracelessly hit the floor. The carpet ate half a dozen curse words in her native language before she peeled herself upright.

Right away she observed that she was not in her hotel room, and then she noticed that she was partially wrapped in a dirty cloak. Then she realized it was _her_ cloak, and that the last place she left her cloak was on the floor of... _oh, shit._  
She was forced to swallow the obvious conclusion: she was in Papyrus's house.

 _Fuck my mother in a bucket, how did I get HERE?_ She dizzily tried to remember—she had found Papyrus and challenged him to a duel. Then she tried to get a reading and...

She groaned again and held her head. That was the worst soul reading of her life. She wondered if there was some electro-magnetic or spirit-trapping business with that suit of armor he wore, or... something else that would have made her aura go haywire.

Shakily she stood, wary of being any kind of guest in this house. She looked around for signs of skeletons, but the house was only lit by bleary white light from the windows, suggesting nobody was home in the middle of the day. At her feet were two pieces of paper, seemingly placed between the couch and the TV by design to get her attention. She stooped to pick them up.

One was small, slightly crumpled and had printed ink on the front that looked like some kind of receipt. On the back was a single sentence written in sharp marker in small, low-key script, and a crudely drawn arrow pointing off the page.

The other paper was a full, crisp white sheet with dashed blue guidelines. Tall, looping handwriting filled the entire page and seemed to be written with either charcoal or a black crayon. The margins were made of a chain of pixel-block bones.

 _It is kind of nice stationery_ , she thought. Not that she cared. She couldn't read the language here, so if the brothers were leaving her some kind of instruction, they were out of luck. The only way she was even speaking with people on this world was thanks to a low level of _em-reading_ her people called "dumb telepathy." It was a learned skill that picked the meaning of spoken expressions as they left people's mouths, and projected her own words through the same subliminal translator. However, it could only skim the top of one's conscious thought (which was where words about to be spoken resided), was tough to do with groups or crowds, and was a far cry from "real" mind-reading, as advanced telepaths (mostly full-breeds) back home didn't fail to remind her. Still, she enjoyed getting to use as many curse words as she wanted in foreign lands, and leaving the results to the listener's frontal lobe.

She folded both pieces of paper into her cloak pocket and left the house.

Outside, a bear was having an animated conversation with a scarf that happened to have a mouse inside, but otherwise the street between the house and the pub was clear. She stepped inside and found it largely empty, only upturned chairs populating the tables. A red bird was reclining on a bar stool and talking to the snazzily-dressed fire-elemental running the joint. As she took a stool of her own, he set down the glass he was cleaning and gestured to a menu.

"Uhhhh," she feigned reading it. "I'm fucking starving. Just give me something not drowning in grease, please."

One of the fiery man's gloved fingers tapped a sign on the bar. The redbird cleared his throat. "Grillby says your dirty whore ass needs to pay him, first."

She stiffened in her seat as the barkeep's head flared and snapped in the bird's direction. "Hey!"

"Ah, right, wasn't supposed to translate that part." The bird rubbed his neck with one wing and held the other out apologetically. "I'm sure your ass is fine, no offense, whore lady. You got a little dirt on your face, though."

She scowled. "Where the hell do you get off calling me that?"

"Well if you must know, my man Kevin said he saw you solicitin' behind the resort. That is a thing whores do, right? Do I have the vernacular correct?"

She actually took a moment to recall whether she'd done any 'soliciting' in that area. All that came to mind was a scrawny hairball who asked for her phone number when she asked him for directions. She had replied (with a little too much sauce) that he couldn't afford it.

"Your little skidmark of a friend didn't see shit, and I don't care for my line of work being likened to whoring."

"What do you call it, then? Grillby says he got another guy catch you sneaking in somebody's window the other night. So, either you in to bang him or you in to rob him. You a cat burglar on the side? I got some cats need to be taken outta my life."

 _Is there no privacy in this damn world?_ Granted, she _was_ trespassing, but she could live without the gossipy neighborhood watch. Against her better judgment, she took up an argument. "If YOU must know, I'm not a thief and I'm not a whore, either. I'm an _exotic mage_. I studied it for years; I had an instructor and everything. It's a legitimate fucking art, okay?"

"Fucking is right," the bird riposted. "So what're you, like a magician? I know some magic. Can pull a coin out of my comb and a wild hare out of my cloaca. Kevin told me you do other tricks, though, and Grillby's man says you're something _really_ exotic. Had to hit a goddamn book just to look it up—well, I just hit on the librarian while he hit the book." He rolled a cawing laugh towards Grillby. "All research and no play, am I right? Haw!"

Grillby went back to cleaning glasses and she went back to glowering. "God, no."

The bird leaned forward and leveled a wing towards her. "Well lemme ask ya, just for clarification: you take strange men to bed?"

Her face sank into her hand, already knowing where this was going. "Sometimes."

"You get them off?"

"...Depends."

"They pay you for it?"

"Yes, damnit."

He sat upright and shrugged. "Then you're a whore. It's very simple economics. They call it the oldest profession for a reason. Grillby's just calling it like it is."

She dropped one emphatic fist on the bar. "But I don't _fuck_ people—well I mean, they don't fuck me. That's now how exotic magic works. I don't let weirdos stick their ding-dongs in my pipes. It's gross."

"A whore who thinks sex is gross, wow," the bird deadpanned. "Either way, 'exotic mage' don't exactly roll off the tongue, lady. Consider 'whore' a term of endearment, eh?"

"I'll consider you a huge asshole."

He blithely shrugged and started picking at a piece of grime on his beaten white shirt. "Meh, I've been called worse. Anyway, tabs don't start 'til after three, so you gotta pay up."

She gave Grillby the coins he asked for and watched him glide into a back room. The redbird simply kept his seat and raised his voice to carry on a discussion they were apparently having before she walked in. She tuned it out, studied the shelf behind the bar and its sundry bottles of liquid, and wondered if the faded labels and dust were indicative of the beverages' ages.

Grillby brought out a simple dish wrapped in a flour tortilla. It contained some bits of green and a meat she didn't recognize, but didn't taste horrible. It was practically ambrosia after the meals she skipped yesterday, so she couldn't knock a decent lunch.

It improved her mood so much she was inspired to leave a tip, even. As she reached for her purse she rediscovered the folded paper in her pocket. She toyed with her curiosity for a moment before giving in.

"Hey," she called out to the bird, laying the paper out on the bar. "Can you do me a favor and tell me what these say?"

He sneered. "Can't read, eh? You mean they don't teach that in whore academy?"

"Oh shut the fuck up."

"You want me to shut up or you want me to read this?"

She huffed and waved him on. His long limb swept the papers under his beak and his marble-sized eyes perused the material. After a few moments he began to chortle.

"Eh, heh heh... So, you stayed with Papyrus last night? How'd that go for ya?"

She didn't like the way his ugly, feathery brows were wagging. "Shut the fuck up. It's not anywhere close to what you think."

He dropped the pretense. "Yeah, I know. Papyrus is one'a them nice guys—wouldn't even dream of it. He seemed pretty concerned for your welfare, anyway, judging by this. Probably a good move that you came here instead of eating whatever he offered in that fridge, though."

"Whatever." She considered going back just to raid their kitchen—not because she was still hungry, but as a punitive measure for her injuries. "What's the other one say?"

The bird squinted at the scrawling on the receipt. "Ehhhhh... dunno. It's not signed. It just says 'there's the front door', whatever that's supposed to mean."

She gave a sour smirk. "Asshole."

The bird indignantly threw up his wings. "The fuck did I do?"

She stepped off the bar stool and bitterly shook her head. "Not you—just, never mind. It's a long walk back to my hotel, so I better get going."

He gaped. "Walking? To that hotel in Hotland? Why don't you just take the ferry?"

"What?"

"You know, that guy with the boat just outside of town? He takes tips for rides between here and Hotland."

She fixed him with a stony look of disbelief. "You're fucking shitting me."

"I wish. Do you charge extra for that?"

She growled, snatched the papers back, wadded them into a tight ball and pitched it into the back of Grillby's head. It neatly combusted, raining ashes on his clean white collar, and the barkeep whirled from the glasses he'd been cleaning with an alarmed mien.

Now that she had his attention, she admonished, "You have a shitty translator, you know that?"

Grillby's shoulders sagged. ' _I know_ ,' her em-reading picked up.

She stormed out. The last words she caught as she hit the door came from the bird.

"That whore was really rude, right?"


	6. Comedians

The river man (woman?) did admire her fashion sense once he-or-she noticed they had matching cloaks, but didn't have much else to say on the ride to Hotland. She spent a while in her hotel room, washing up and meditating on her predicament, before getting hungry enough to venture down to the lobby.

She discovered a small crowd in the lounge, and decided to sate her curiosity as well as her appetite. She carried her plate of chili fries into the dimly-lit dining area and took a small table near the back, with a decent view of a stage where some kind of "open-mic night" was taking place.

A wrinkled tortoise with a peaked beard was in the middle of an act, which seemed to be nothing but anecdotes centered on his age. Someone near the front of the crowd egged him to, "Tell some jokes, you old fart!" and the tortoise inflated with umbrage.

"Jokes, eh? You want jokes? I got some old surface-jokes for you kiddos." He straightened his collar and cracked a toothless grin. "There once was an old man burying his dead wife, who he'd hated for years. They just never stopped fighting, right up until she died. When somebody came by the tombstone and asked the man, 'Who rests in peace here?' the man answered, 'Me, now that I'm rid of her!' Wah, hah! Eh?"

She was trying harder to understand how a tortoise could wear a button-up shirt under his shell than trying to grasp the joke. A few coughs of laughter encouraged him to tell another, however. "Here's an old one from the books: A wise guy once visited his sick friend. The friend's wife said he was too late, and his friend was dearly departed. So the wise guy, he says, 'When he gets back, can you tell him I stopped by?' Wahaha!"

A general "eeeehhhh" from the audience ushered him down. "Right, right, that's all the stories I got. You kids be good, hah!"

She was considering whether the food she bought was, in fact, edible when the lounge's DJ announced over the speakers, "And our next act comes from... Sans the Skeleton!"

Polite applause from the surrounding crowd drowned her groan. _God, really?_

The stumpy monster strolled onto the stage and whisked the microphone from the stand. "heeeey, how's everyone tonight? i think you'll like this set, no bones about it! let's see... got a question for you guys. how do you make a hot dog stand?" He waited two beats too long before delivering, "...you steal its chair, heh."

And then the crowd groaned. At least everyone was on the same page, now.

"what kind of bone will a dog never eat? ...a _trom_ bone."

Two dogs at a nearby table started yelping, "blasphemy!" but the act kept trucking.

"what do ghosts serve for dessert? ...i scream. no? what about _boo-berry_ pie? not much for sweets, eh? well, what do you get when you cross a cat with a lemon? ...a sour-puss."

Some childish giggles ran along the front row, seeming to approve, even as a cat screeched, "The only thing sour is this act!" Beneath the chuckles that heckler won, the succubus brooded over her rotten dinner and muttered, "Sheesh. Got any jokes that aren't food-related, chucklefuck?"

As if he heard her—and there was no way, she was too far and too quiet—Sans's eyes snapped towards her table for a moment, and then his grin broadened. "how does a girl vampire flirt? ...give up? she _bats_ her eyes."

For the children this almost saved the act, until it was immediately followed with, "where does dracula usually eat his lunch? ...at the _casketeria_."

"Eat this!" was the response from the floor, and then a volley of vegetables. Sans didn't take much care to avoid it—a bright red fruit smashed on the dome of his head. He blinked, smiled some more, grabbed it and took a bite. "mmm, thanks. have a good night, everybody!" More salad chased him off the stage.

The door of the DJ's booth in the opposite corner slammed open, and a otter-esque creature barked, "Hey! Who's throwing fruit again? You can't do that in here!"

A handful of impish-looking monsters with horns and scales started cackling around a crate of produce. The otter streaked from his booth to catch them, and the kids scattered. "You get back here and clean this up, you little turds! Our custodian doesn't get paid enough to deal with your pint-sized rubbish! And I should know, because that custodian is me!"

She watched one nimble kid dart under the cover of a tablecloth, but didn't get to see how the pursuit ended once a slab of scales and muscle slid into her field of view. She gawked at what filled the opposite chair: a serpentine body-builder with a horse's head and more abs than a washboard had slats.

The mer-horse flicked his bouffant mane with the fin of his long tail and rested his burly arms on the table. "Hey there, babe. What's your name?"

 _For fuck's sake, this is my night now?_ "Not interested."

The rebuff injected as much sense into him as there was flavor in her chili-fries. "Oh yeah? My name's Aaron. I'm a Cancer. What's your sign, baby?"

"Yeah, I feel like I'm looking at cancer..." she uttered at her plate.

"I know, right? You can just see it in my awesome pecs." He flexed and winked.

"That segue was... wow. Maybe you should be on stage, because it was hilariously bad."

"I don't know..." He thumbed his chin and looked behind him. "There's a lot of citrus up there. I only use seaweed on my hair, y'know? Can't risk getting the wrong plant-juice in my super-buff mane." His focus swung back to her with another unprompted wink. "So, lovely, you got any plans for tonight? Because Aaron is totally here to keep you company."

 _I can not get rid of this douchebag fast enough._ She spied a disused drum kit in the corner of the lounge and had a morbid idea. "Well, Aaron, do you like to play music?"

"Me? Oh, man, I love to jam out while I'm rocking some barbells. Don't play any instruments or nothin', though."

"I see. I'm a fan of the violin. It produces such a rich sound. It's said those strings are made from catgut. Do you know what's in catgut?"

"Uhh, cats?"

"It's misleading, really. Catgut is made of animal intestines, but usually not cats. What really works better is goat, or donkey, or _horse_..." She leaned forward, steepled her clawed fingers and adopted her most sultry tone. "Oh, nothing feels better than pulling a _horsehair_ bow over some fine, _horse_ -grade catgut and listening to the strings _scream_..."

She'd admit she'd never seen a horse of any kind sweat before, much less a sea-horse. "Uhhh... yeah, wow, that sounds cool..."

She let a dark sibilance creep into her voice. "Would you like to hear it? You could come to my room, alone, and help me make _some sweet music_..."

Aaron nearly fell out of his chair. "Man, you know, I spaced out and totally forgot about... something I need to do at the gym right now... Yeah, nice to meet ya."

She watched him squirm away with a satisfied smirk. "See ya."

Just as she drew a sigh of relief, someone else filled Aaron's seat. She bit down on her breath when she saw it was Sans. The skeleton greeted her with a wave and smile.

 _Well, this is awkward._

"you're pretty good at making friends, aren't ya?"

If she had a moment to plan this encounter, she might have started with something better than, "The hell do you want?"

His grin arched with amusement. "case in point. you're not really from around here, huh?"

"No, I'm not."

"you don't look like you came from the surface, either."

"Gee, what was your first clue?"

Much like heckling, the sarcasm washed over him. "your funny accent. so, where're you from?"

"Nowhere you'd recognize."

"fair enough. i won't pry. we all have secrets, right?" He winked, and in the dark lounge it looked creepy enough to unsettle her. His voice never shifted in tone—low, sluggish and kind of dumb, in a lackadaisical way. It was different from the high-strung dimwittedness of his "brother," yet all of Papyrus's babbling at least seemed earnest, while Sans's demeanor was very off-putting. Much like the permanent grin on his face, it belied his words and was hard to read.

"so... you going to be in town for a while?"

"I have a job to do. I'll leave once it's done."

"that so?" He eyed her plate of soggy fried chips. "you gonna eat that?"

She shook her head and watched in revulsion as he took an adjacent red bottle, unscrewed the cap, drowned the plate in ketchup and then picked and ate the dripping globs of fried rat meat with his fingers.

"Do you EVEN taste it?"

He cocked a look that suggested she was the crazy one for asking. "of course. it's deliciously bad for you."

"I just don't understand how a skeleton can be fat."

He didn't even stop smiling to look injured. "hey, that's not very nice. i'd say i'm 'big boned', y'know?"

His puns were even less entertaining in person. "Whatever. Just, where do you put it all?" She poked the paunch of his white shirt with the spear of her tail for emphasis. "You don't have a stomach. I mean... do you?"

He recoiled from her prodding, the look he shot her rekindling something sharp from the other night. She didn't want to cross that line again, so she tucked her tail away.

Then he merely smiled through some ketchup and kept talking. "monster food isn't like that. you just eat it and it goes, poof, you know? we just take the energy. digesting food is for chumps. and humans, i guess."

"Is that why it all tastes like dog food?"

"hey, com'on. grillby's cooking isn't that bad. hell, you should try my brother's."

"Ugh, no thanks."

She was subjected to watching him finish the fries, repulsed by the weird slurping and smacking noises at every bite. To his credit, he attempted to use one of the napkins from the holder on the table, but the grease and ketchup persisted, and she could swear there were old food stains behind where his ears would be.

She stopped grimacing enough to ask, "Do you never... ever, consider a shower? Or a bath? Or anything involving soap? Or is being disgusting like a coat of armor for you?"

His response was to rest one elbow on the table and lean closer, friendly grin reaching up to devilishly lowered brows. "is this how you seduce all the boys?"

That wrecked her train of thought. He followed with another question. "so, what is it you eat, then?"

"What?"

"the other night, you said you feed on something special. what is it?"

She'd almost hoped he had forgotten, or thought he was dreaming, but just in case this conversation wasn't awkward enough, he decided to talk about the other night.

"You said you didn't know what a succubus was."

He shifted his gaze. "well... i read books sometimes. they're mostly boring. my brother likes the fantasy stuff, but i'm more into sci-fi."

"Well..." If she was going to run with this fabrication, she might as well own it. "I feed on sex. I _seduce_ -" to use his word, "-my clients and draw from the energy produced during a sexual release."

"huh," was his thoughtful comment on it. "you make it sound like a business."

"It pretty much is. Most pay for the pleasure."

He folded his arms behind his head and leaned back. "sounds like funny stuff to me. i sure wouldn't pay for it."

"You have no sex organs. Of course you don't get it." That was, basically, her problem here. Although—he never answered that stomach question. "Wait, or do you?"

He gave her a _really_ funny look and didn't answer that, either. Instead, he said, "but i guess you found somebody here who does. what does your job have to do with me and my brother?"

 _Well, shit._ Despite the impression from the stage, this one was almost clever. "Who said my job has anything to do with you? I'm working on something else."

He shrugged and lowered a look that was both jovial and cynical. "then i guess you just like breaking and entering, huh? knocking on the door's too good for you?"

"Look, I..." She didn't like apologizing. "I'm sorry about the other night. I made a mistake."

"you were pretty committed to that mistake. i gave you the easy way out, y'know. and then you go and challenge my brother to a duel. makes a guy wonder, y'know?"

"I'm new to this stupid town, and you already broke my damn wing. Cut me some slack."

If he was going to condemn her, he didn't say. He simply reclined in his seat, the beads of his eyes tracing her figure, sizing her up or tearing her down—she still couldn't tell. At any rate, the appraisal was interrupted by her stomach growling. His eyes flicked to her waist and his lame grin twitched.

"so... what happens if you don't feed?"

"It's not pretty. But what the fuck do you care?" She was about to tell him to leave her alone, but she couldn't—he was part of this stupid job. She hated it.

"you've got some mouth on ya, huh lady? you think about turning it down a notch? there's kids in this hotel, you know."

She was starting to hate this guy, too.

"Listen to me, you smiley sack of shit. I don't know what your problem is, but is it heavier than _'I'm stranded in a hell-hole full of freaks and have no hope of ever leaving?'_ Because that's what's on my plate, and it tastes like hot garbage."

She might as well have slapped him. He stood up on the chair (the only way he'd possibly get taller than anyone), planted his hands on the table and dropped her a long, hollow look. A wrinkle in his brow was crossed between anger and... something painful, but the smile only grew wider. "lady, you have no idea."

He hopped down and walked away.


	7. Decisions

"Did you pick one?"

She faced the shady man in the alley again. It was difficult to give a non-sardonic answer. "Now that I have officially been beaten up by both of them, yes, I have."

She didn't like it, but after thinking hard on the matter, she realized she didn't have a choice. Papyrus couldn't be handled without the spiritual equivalent of rubber gloves and slicker suit, and she'd rather clamp an industrial battery to her nipples than try to read him again. Process of elimination left only one.

She opened her mouth to go on, but he held up a sharp white glove. "Don't tell me. Just bring back proof of the job."

"Okay, but how in the hell-"

Something in his hand winked at her. It dangled from his fingers on a rough string, and she recognized it with a start.

"Hey, that's fucking MINE...!"

"You dropped this, no? It's what you went down into the dump for."

She squinted at him. "How did you even know...?"

"I see things in this world—all kinds of things. And I have people who find things for me, too."

She looked around the dank alley, suddenly uncomfortable with being watched. After a breath, she steadied a glare at him. "Give that back."

With a flick of the wrist, it sailed back to her. She snatched it mid-air and immediately checked it for nicks or scratches. The string was weather-beaten and stained, but the quartz-like pendant was smooth and secure. "This is my crystal charm. I use it to-"

"Open gates?"

She paused. "Among other things."

"I noticed it has some very special potential. It appears to be drained of power, however. If you want, I can use it to get what you're asking for."

"How?"

"It needs to build a charge. When you do your job, make sure he wears it. That will be your proof."

She treated him with another leery look. "How will that...?"

The hissing sound behind the mask was _maybe_ laughter. "I'm surprised you never thought of it, yourself." A blade of shadow swept the alley, and he left.

"Hey...!" She started a few steps around the corner, but he was gone. "I hate how that fucker does that."

\- 7 -

The woods around Snowdin were really pleasant, she thought, except for the cold part. She was born in a hot climate where she didn't need to wear layers, and she didn't like the way her cloak dragged her down while flying. However, she couldn't use her wings right now, so she had little to complain about in that respect.

She had meandered around town for a while before asking about the skeleton brothers. A devil resembling a grapefruit told her that they were both part of the town's sentry squad, and that clue led her into the wilderness.

Her next clue was one of the "sentry stations" she found empty. It was crudely constructed of plywood, smelled like old paint and dry rot, and was manned only by a short-pegged stool and an empty bag of potato chips. When she pressed on, the trail gradually descended into thicker, darker, less green wood, and she wondered how far it would go.

Just to find out, she stepped to one of the taller pine trees, sank her claws into the soft bark and shuffled her way up. Her wing might be broken, but she was still a good climber, and had energy to spare by the time she perched on one of the stripped branches near the top.

It was a fascinating view: a frosty umber sea unfolded around her, with the twinkling lights and rooftops of Snowdin rising over the treetops a couple miles away. It looked colder in the daylight than it did after dark, although even days and nights were weird, here. There were no heavens to see, yet light cycles seemed to permeate the underground from all angles, as if directed telescopically from an unknown above.

Her gaze climbed across the foggy ceiling and landed in some stony ruins on the dark side of the "sky." The walls appeared to be thickly sewn into the black earth, and only the hint of grand towers covered in moss and vines reached her from the shadows.

It was a grand box of a world: so small yet so vast at the same time. She wondered how she might ever escape... and that brought her thoughts back to her "mission."

She flippantly wished for a mark with a regular, non-caustic soul and Papyrus's gullible personality, but she was going to have to settle on the (both physical and spiritual) equivalent of a snapping turtle. She'd spent the whole day pondering how to get close enough to Sans to do the job. There was no way she'd get what she was after without his consent, so...

Well, maybe—she had a sudden vision of a lot of rope and a gag, but immediately shut it out with a shudder. _No way._

She sighed. She would just have to be diplomatic. It wasn't her strong suit. She wrapped her cloak tightly around her and clung to the perch, resting for a bit. It made a great vantage-point over the trail below, and if anyone happened by, she could stay camouflaged and watch.

As a child, she liked to people-watch. She had a cat's proclivity for high places and a spider's knack for hiding, which only enabled her habit. In the middle of a town, she could spy on all the bustle and business of the day, but sometimes her favorite watching happened in remote parts. People, in general, were predictable in crowds. They maintained a sense of propriety and self-monitoring that made the stand-out act of mayhem a rare event. It got boring to watch.

However, it was amazing how people act when they think they're alone. That was why, when she caught sight of a head bobbing along the far trail, she stayed frozen and waited.

 _Well, well. If it isn't just who I was looking for?_ Sans was walking at an easy pace, hands buried in his coat and eyes on the ground, yet even as he drew closer he seemed to be moving slower. He wound around one of the thicker trees, and then around another one, drawing figure-eights with his sluggish footsteps until he ground to a stop altogether, the snow muffling all sound.

And then he did... nothing. He didn't look up, or ahead, or make any note of his surroundings, but simply... stood there for several minutes. She puzzled at this. If he was any sort of computer, she would have looked for a reboot switch by now.

Suddenly his posture jerked upright, as if he just awoke. He looked around, focused on a tree and sat down on its roots, reclining against the trunk.

Well, just in case she thought she'd already seen the most boring thing that day, this lazy sentry showed up to take a nap in the middle of nowhere. She could claim to be disappointed, but not surprised. Since it would be weird to explain what she'd been doing up to this point, she decided not to jump down and risk waking him.

She shifted in place and bunkered down (or up, rather) to wait him out.

 _Fucking skeletons, looking creepy all the goddamn time, even when they sleep,_ she mused as she studied his features. He always had a sort of rictus, just because of his skull's shape, but it had relaxed into an expression that didn't look so damn perma-happy. The pitch void of his eye sockets still looked haunting, though, and propped limply against the tree he looked like a scary doll, fit for the closet of some witch doctor's grandmother.

 _Maybe that's the idea_ , she thought. _Pose like a mannequin in a haunted house and then jump up and scare the pants off the next passer-by._

She was almost sold on it, but then he broke the spell by blinking. That's when she remembered that these skeletons didn't sleep with their eyes open—so, he was just staring straight ahead, perfectly awake and not moving. For minutes. Again. Was there something captivating to watch here that she wasn't seeing? She had a pretty good angle of the forest floor, and all she could see were twigs and needles. For all appearances, he was staring into space.

Half an hour passed. She shifted her legs again, thighs cramping horribly, yet she was painfully aware of the slightest creak from her tree's bough. She toyed with the idea of plucking a pine cone off the nearest branch and chucking it onto San's fat head, just to see if he would react.

She all but fell asleep, herself, when finally he moved. It was so subtle, she almost missed it. He had taken a twig off the ground and drawn a pattern in the snow next to his leg. The pattern was etched with long, slow, listless strokes, traced over and over until the twig struck a buried root and snapped. The sound seemed to break his trance; he looked about, blinking widely, and then stiffly climbed to his feet and walked away, back towards town.

 _Well, that was... something._ She waited until he was far out of earshot before scratching her way down the tree. The snow on the ground ate her feet with a light crunch. She flexed her sore limbs and then stalked over to that patch of ground with the broken twig.

Sans had drawn... something odd. It wasn't a haphazard doodle, and it didn't look like any object in particular. It was a symbol with very distinct weight and symmetry, yet wasn't part of the alphabet native to this region. She couldn't read but she wasn't _blind_ , either. She could tell when one style of script didn't match another, and she could tell when one language was not another, especially when the letters were presented in blocky signage all over the place.

In fact—and maybe the cold was getting to her head—but the letter looked familiar, like something she'd encountered elsewhere. She just knew this was going to be one of those things that slapped her in the face later, because she _really_ felt like she knew this, or should know this, but-

"i don't want you trying that funny stuff on my brother."

She had a minor heart attack.

Sans had just, _fucking appeared_ , feet braced on a log leaning above her, somehow poised and intimidating for all his ridiculous stature and apparel (his house slippers were caked with mud and snow.) The pits of his eyes were dark, grim, and he was smiling as usual.

And then he shrugged, facade sliding back into something affable. "but... i guess if you really HAVE to... you can try it on me."

She tipped a careful look at him, taken aback. "Really?"

He winked, she blinked, and he was gone.


	8. The Tab

Night was falling when she walked back into town. She stepped into Grillby's to warm her feet, and met a fair-sized crowd inside. She hung her cloak on a wall peg and parked on a bench by the door, surveying the room.

Three canines were present tonight: the puffy armor-clad one, feasting on a bowl of kibble by himself, a beagle sporting dark glasses and a cane, and a brutish-looking wolf guarding a corner of the bar.

Next to the wolf she saw Sans, chatting with four others (a hamster-faced punk in tight jeans and a leather jacket, a blob of fur the size of a salad bowl with floppy rabbit ears, a gaunt blue hare in a collared shirt, and that dick-headed redbird) while Grillby waited on them. As if he felt her gaze, he turned around and spotted her across the pub instantly. His grin widened and he stepped away from the group to approach her.

"hey, what'chya doing back here? come hang out with us."

"Uh, I don't-" He took her hand and towed her up to the bar before she could invent a protest. There was one empty spot left (lucky for her), and she hadn't even settled on her bar stool when the redbird's face lit up with recognition. "Ey, it's Whorey McCrabby!"

Bemused looks fell on her from around the bar. She slapped the counter. "Would you quit calling me whore?"

"We will until we get a better name. You got one?"

"Get bent."

"Kinky," the bird clucked.

The amorphous bunny-ball lolled towards her, extending one fuzzy ear in lieu of a handshake. "Hi, darlin'. I'm Cinny. It's a pleasure to see a pretty new face here."

She warily grasped the ear and shook it. "Charmed."

Cinny giggled, stood upside-down on both ears, and then cartwheeled across the counter-top to face the skeleton. "Sansy, where'd you find this one?"

"ah, this is my friend i told ya about. she's just visiting town." He winked at her, and she wondered how that was supposed to signal any kind of favor. She didn't want to imagine what he'd told his bar-chums about her already—it was impossible that it was anything _good_.

The wolf's burly, slate arm reached for her hand, next. "Heya, I'm Reznor. You can call me Rez."

And then the hare. "Eheh, I'm Trent."

The hamster flipped her a casual gesture. "'sup, I'm Rudy."

Introductions out of the way, Sans then tapped the counter with his knuckles. "hey grillbz, knock knock."

Grillby adjusted his spectacles (she was impressed by the magic that didn't burn everything he touched or wore) while the redbird rolled his eyes so hard his head wobbled. "God, no."

"come on, knock knock."

 _'Who's there?'_ Grillby humored him.

"banana."

'Banana who?'

"knock knock."

Grillby and the bird exchanged a look. "...Who's there?"

"banana."

"Banana who?"

"knock knock."

"Are you-" the bird sputtered. "Are you broken? Who's there?"

"orange."

A beat.

"...Uh. Orange who?"

Sans was grinning so hard she thought she heard molars creaking. " _orange_ you glad i didn't say banana?"

The wolf started guffawing, and the redbird rubbed his temples. "I hate you," he flatly told Sans. "You know this, right? You realize that you are a person that I hate."

 _'I don't hate him?'_ she heard Grillby interject.

The bird tiredly snapped back, "Of course you don't, you hot lug, but you should. His bar tab's longer than a muffet's wedding trail."

"Ah," Cinny sighed, her eyes swirling with a dreamy expression. "I'd be Ms. Muffet's bride any day. The wedding would be _so_ exciting and stylish. Spider silk is _very_ in vogue right now."

Everyone paused long enough to shoot her a queer look. Then the bird continued, entreating the barkeep, "No, really, think about it. If Sans paid his tab TONIGHT, in full-"

The skeleton grabbed the bar, threw his head back and started laughing, as if that thought on its own were the best joke he'd heard all night.

"-then Grillby would be able to retire tomorrow. Like, you could close this damn bar for good, board the windows, torch the whole place, not even bother to collect the insurance money, buy a cottage outside the capital and sit on a molten pile of money for the rest of your days."

"Oh com'on, Malk, you're exaggerating," the hamster chided him.

Sans recovered enough to say, "yeah, i wouldn't _eggs_ aggerate those figures. a bird can only stretch a _bill_ so far, y'know?"

"Hate you," the redbird stated again. "Hate you so much. Your stupid bird puns don't even work; I have a _beak_ and not a _bill_ , you bone-headed twat."

"...I always imagined the wedding night with Ms. Muffet would look like a bicycle crash."

Everyone stopped and stared at Cinny again. She seemed lost on the attention, although Rudy used the lapse in conversation to wag his beer bottle at the barkeep. "Hey Grillbz, running dry."

Sans held up a hand. "hang on, grillbz. bring down the wildfire for everybody."

Cinny whistled. "Whoa-ho, Sansy, going for the hard stuff tonight! What's the occasion?"

"oh, you know, in honor of our new pal, here." He winked at her again. The hair on her neck bristled with muted dread. If she had any sense, she'd leave now, but something was oddly enticing about the opportunity to try a strange drink with strange company in a strange land.

Grillby folded his arms and stared him down. Sans mollified him with a shrug. "no worries, grillbz, it's not going on my tab. i promise."

She could swear one searing, skeptical eyebrow rose, but then Grillby took an ember-colored bottle off the top shelf and gathered shot glasses for the group.

"Speaking of bicycles," Trent picked up the conversation, "Mine's flat again. Do you want to _guess_ what caused it?"

"It was toy jacks last time, wasn't it?" Rez asked.

"Oh, yes it was! And this time it was those same kids again, playing a damn game of 'speed-bump' and tearing my tires on their little slimy teeth."

Rudy did a double-take. "Wait. Are you saying you _ran over_ Mr. Wad's _kids_ with your bike?"

"That is what it sounded like," Rez concurred.

"Little pipsqueaks were lying right in the road! They do it on purpose."

"We have roads?" Malk quibbled.

As Trent's voice intensified, so did a neurotic twitch in one eye. "Yes! And their bubble-brain of a father should be teaching them to stay clear of 'em. They're trying to cause an accident, just for shits and giggles. I could sue. I could sue! I'm getting me a lawyer."

"In Snowdin? Hah!" Malk cawed. "Get Minx to read a law book and maybe she can fake it for a day, before she writes 'vehicular manslaughter' into the next crossword."

Grillby produced everyone's shots with a flourish of tiny glass _clinks_. The group made an excited noise and simultaneously reached across the bar to snatch them up. "Cheers, chumps!" Malk exclaimed.

"Yay!"  
"Hah!"  
"Cheers!"

Sans made a point to shove one of the glasses under her nose. "bottoms up?"

She grimaced, picked it up, caught a glimpse of a playfully expectant smile, and drank the shot. Her whole body cringed at its effect—it was called "wildfire" appropriately.

Sans just laughed while Malk clapped her on the back. "Beautiful! Whore took it like a champ."

" _Fuck all your mothers into the next life_ ," she rasped, and that only made the bird laugh, too.

"Ohhhh, she's feisty. I love it, hun. You'll fit in here just fine," Cinny applauded her.

Rudy shook his shoulders and wrinkled his snout. "Holy crap, that really scorched the pipes. And shit, Trent. You just admitted to hitting two kids with your bike. You ran. over. two. children. If anybody's going to sue, it's Mr. Wad."

"Does he even know what happened?" Rez asked.

"They're fine! The little boogers didn't even take a scratch. Unlike my bike—did you see my bike? Did any of you see those tires? They're a wreck. Mr. Wad needs to pay for those through his greasy little mustache, because I'm not!"

"Oh, honey, no," Cinny cooed disapprovingly. "You'll never win this one. You're already the horrible person in this situation."

"yeah, i'd cut your losses, buddy. maybe even _slash_ them. y'know, because tires."

"Sans," Malk cut in, "I swear to god, I'm liking you now because of the shots. That's it. Your present good standing with me is purely on the basis of providing me a free drink. Maybe now I'll get drunk enough to tolerate your crap puns."

The discourse carried on for another hour, and then another round of _wildfire_. Or two. She sat back and stayed quiet, having difficulty _em-reading_ the entire group and starting to feel impeded by the alcohol, anyway. She merely kept track of whoever was talking, nodded when it felt appropriate, and tried not to look obvious as she studied her mark some more.

Sans seemed so... _animated_. His eye-sockets folded into happy crescents and his gestures were fluid and lively, dancing along to conversation even when he wasn't participating directly. It made her barely notice the way his mouth didn't open when he talked, or the way his fingers didn't click against the bar the way bone does on wood, or any of the nuances that defied being a skeleton and made him seem _almost personable_ , in this company. There was such a disparity between watching him at the bar with his friends and spying on him alone in the woods that she started to get a thought, but it wouldn't stick. She blamed the fire whiskey—pesky brain-lubricant, that.

"knock, knock."

She didn't realize her thoughts were roaming until he'd nudged her shoulder. "Uh, huh?"

"you okay? knock knock."

She looked around to get reoriented. Trent was carrying Cinny out the door, and Rez and Rudy just finished an arm-wrestling match. They were exchanging a complicated handshake as they drifted towards the exit, themselves. Sans had moved into the seat next to hers, and the look she was getting made it seem like she was the object of study, now. "Uh, yeah. I'm fine."

"com'on, you're supposed to say 'who's there'?"

She managed to squash a look of disgust. _Play nice._ "Ugh, who's there?"

"woo."

"Woo who?"

"don't get so excited; it's just a joke."

"God. You're the worst."

He only relished her response. "heheh. having a nice time?"

She felt now was a good time to mention, "I don't date my marks, you know. It's my rule number one. Actually, wait—I think it's rule number two. Whatever, it's a thing."

"i don't know any guys named mark, but who said anything about a date? this is just a few drinks between pals."

 _I'm not your fucking pal_ , was on the tip of her tongue, but she held it. She couldn't tell if the whiskey was making it harder or easier to be _diplomatic_. "Why are you agreeing to do this?"

He blinked (a little out of sync, one eye shuttering faster than the other—the whiskey seemed to be getting to him, too) before catching her meaning. "i'd thought about what you said, about feeding on stuff, and, well... can't let a lady go hungry, can i? tha'd be, like, a nightmare to me."

"Gee, how chivalrous of you. Seriously, though, do you know WHAT you're agreeing to?"

"kinda. not really. why, is it dangerous? i'm already a skeleton, so... figure it can't hurt." Her _em-reading_ almost picked up an extra word on the end of that, but it didn't come out, as if he had pulled it back. Curious.

"Well..." _Depends on what you actually are. We're about to find out._ "-no, not usually. Like I said, people pay me for a good time. It's just, not everybody's too agreeable with what I have to offer. A lot of societies are pretty damn prudish about this kind of thing. ...That's actually how I got stuck here," she recalled bitterly.

"really? what happened?"

" _Apparently_ ," she spat, "Prostitution is illegal on some worlds—even though that's not technically what I do. Whatever. I got into some trouble, I made a random jump to get out..." She rolled her wrist to fill in the gaps. "...I ended up here."

"that's some jump. you must have really strong legs."

"Not THAT kind of jump, dumbass. I mean... I mean a gate, like..." She realized he probably had no inkling of a jump gate or how it applied to anything here, so she dropped the thought. "Whatever. I'll be leaving soon enough."

His rictus sobered a bit. "good luck with that. if you find a way through that barrier, let us know, eh? i'm sure these guys would love to hear about it."

"Yeah, I've been meaning to ask. What the hell's up with that barrier thing?"

"wha'd'you mean?"

"I mean _why is it there_? Who put it there?" she questioned.

The redbird interjected, "The humans, who else? It's been there since, like, forever. Sheesh, lady, I know you can't read, but ain't you ever took a history lesson?"

"been there since the war, yep."

"Been there so long nobody even remembers what it was like before, y'know?"

"ah, i bet i know one guy who does," Sans said.

Malk blew a raspberry through his beak. "Feh, save your damn bet. Mr. Gerson's old as dirt. He remembers when dirt was invented, even."

"heh, probably." Sans's eyes floated to her collarbone. "that's a nice lil' necklace you got."

She reflexively looked down at the charm and cracked a grin. "Thanks, it's... Heh. When my people are born, we're sent off to the nursery right away, to begin our training. If we survive long enough to see our naming day, we get one of these. It's a piece of a larger crystal from my home. It's a conduit for magic, like a little lightning rod. It's useful for all kinds of things."

His brows tipped a little wider, suggesting interest. "magic, huh? what kind of magic?"

"There's all kinds. Back home, the schools break it down into either 'material magic' or 'spirit magic'. I specialize in spirit magic, myself. It's what I use for my work."

She clapped the crystal shard between her hands and blew on it, illustrating a breath of magic by making it glow warmly lavender for a moment. "This crystal responds to my aura because I'm bound to it. That color is my soul's magic."

"huh. that's pretty cool. we use a lot of magic here, too. monsters are just born with it. our man grillby, here, is practically made of the stuff."

Grillby tipped his spectacles at the mention, and then held an open hand out to Sans.

"hmm? ah, right." His grin stretched back to the brink of mischievous as he sluggishly climbed down from the bar. He squeezed the end of her tail and then started to walk out. "welp, i'm bushed. time to go home. thanks for buying our drinks, lady."

"What?!" she yelped at his back a moment later, once his words struck home. Incensed, she spun towards the bar and stuck a thumb over her shoulder. "Is he always such a-"

Strong nods from Grillby and Malk that spared her the need to finish the sentence with - _fucking cheapskate_.

Her, "God _damnit,_ " was punctuated by the sound of more of her coin going into Grillby's hand. "I'm going to catch him and flay his stingy ass," she growled as she found her cloak and headed to the door.

"Easy, whore," Malk called after her. "I wouldn't break out the whips and chains until the second date, at least!"

 _"Eat a dick."_


	9. The Job

It wasn't much of a chase. Sans was standing ten feet away from the front door of Grillby's, and seemed to be waiting on her. She stomped across the snow to meet him, fuming.

"Hey...! That was money-" _that somebody paid me to mark you._ She realized she probably shouldn't say that. "...that was my money."

He rubbed his nasal cavity with a snicker. "aww, don't worry. it's tainted money, now."

She had to swallow her panic. "W-What's that supposed to mean?" _There's no way he could KNOW-_

"i mean it _taint_ yours and it _taint_ mine."

It was another joke. She wanted to slap him, but relief sapped her energy. "Goddamn it."

He stuffed his hands into his coat pockets and rocked on his feet, trying to seem easygoing but nearly falling, instead. He caught himself and didn't bother looking abashed.

"so... you hungry?"

 _What obtuse motherfucker wants to eat at this hour_ \- She stumbled on the idea before remembering—right, the job. They should get it over with. _Sooner it's done, the sooner I can get off this world_. "Yeah. Let's go somewhere private."

The two looked down the dark, quiet street to the little house with the festive lights and wreath on the door. It wasn't even far, which was good, because after today her feet were like ice blocks and she rather looked forward to having feeling in her toes again.

Sans seemed to have a better idea than walking straight there. She felt him lean into her side as he tucked an arm around her waist. "hang on, i know a shortcut."

He held out a hand in the direction of his house, but after a beat nothing happened. He hiccuped. " _hic_... er, probably shouldn't try that right now. heh."

They just walked. He didn't quite let go of her side, seeming to use her taller body for support, and even though they didn't have far to go, twice his feet nearly slipped on the ice. He was definitely tipsy, whether he'd admit it or not.

God, _fuck_. She shouldn't have drunk that whiskey. Neither of them should've, but she was used to dealing with inebriated marks, as long as she wasn't, either. It made this more complicated than it needed to be. If she got sloppy now, it could go _really_ badly. She didn't want to tell him when he asked, but there were horror stories of spirit mages turning people's insides into soup. She'd have to be _trying_ to botch a job that badly, but since she didn't know this mark's spiritual constitution, it just might happen.

She was feeling a little better already, however. Her fit over the bar tab and the cold air outside helped a lot. She dragged him to the front door, he fished a keyring out of his pocket and they entered the house.

The third step up the staircase squeaked, ratting them out. The door above cracked open. "BROTHER? ARE YOU HOME?"

She backed away from Sans, leaving him at the foot of the stairs. He glanced back to see her throw up her hands with a wide shrug, indicating that whatever unfolded next was absolutely his problem and his job to deal with it.

"yeah, bro. i just got in."

Papyrus trotted down the stairs to meet him. "YOU MISSED OUR SHOW! CAROLINE FELL INTO THE RIVER. SHE WAS HANGING TO A TREE BRANCH FOR DEAR LIFE, BUT THEN LADDIE FISHED HER OUT. IT WAS VERY HARROWING."

"aw, shucks. at least she didn't fall off the mountain, though."

"A MOUNTAIN?" The bones of his brow somehow furrowed with concern. "THAT'S TERRIBLE. WHY WOULD YOU EVEN SAY THAT?"

"because then it would've been a cliff-hanger, heh."

Papyrus slapped a gloved hand over his own face. "UGH. YOU ARE, TRULY, THE WORST."

 _That's what I said_ , she noted with a smirk as he caught his smaller brother by the jacket and then lifted him off the ground with zero effort. Not for the first time, she was impressed with Papyrus's strength. The taller skeleton gave a loud sniff. "AND I SMELL ALCOHOL. HAVE YOU BEEN DRINKING?"

"i was just at grillby's. me and the guys got a little carried away, y'know?"

"SANS, I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU," he scolded, shaking Sans lightly. He swayed limply like a rag doll and listened blankly. "I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THIS, OR AT LEAST NOT TO DO IT SO LATE. IT'S HARD ENOUGH TO GET YOU TO WAKE UP IN TIME FOR WORK AS IT IS."

Was she... getting stuck in the middle of one _these_ kind of family moments? She got the itch to leave, before she was dragged in.

"i'm totally fine, bro. _bone_ -a-fide, even."

Papyrus dropped him with a huff, and she was equally impressed at Sans for not staggering the second his feet touched the floor—it was as if Papyrus had actually _yelled_ him sober. "SHEESH. YOU MUST BE, IF YOU CAN MAKE THESE TERRIBLE JOKES." He finally noticed her in the room. "OH, HELLO FORTUNE-TELLER! I WAS WORRIED WHEN I DIDN'T SEE YOU YESTERDAY."

At 'fortune teller' Sans passed her the most incredulous look she'd seen from him, yet. She ignored it. "Oh. Uh, sorry to just take off."

"IT'S FINE. SANS SAID HE SAW YOU AT THE HOTEL THAT NIGHT, SO I KNEW YOU WERE WELL. HAD QUITE A SCARE BACK THERE AT UNDYNE'S HOUSE. I DIDN'T KNOW MY FORTUNE WOULD BE SO AMAZING IT WOULD MAKE YOU FAINT! IT'S PART OF MY _STUNNING_ CHARISMA, I SUPPOSE."

 _Awful humor must run in this family._ "Uh... right. No problem. Thanks for the, uh, hospitality."

"OF COURSE. THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS NOTHING IF NOT A GREAT HOST. BESIDES, I MUST THANK YOU FOR BRINGING MY BROTHER HOME. HE CAN BE A CHORE, I KNOW."

"standing right here, bro."

"YES, AND YOU'RE FILTHY, TOO." He took the end of his scarf and started scrubbing the back of Sans's head. "WHERE DO YOU EVEN GET THIS DIRTY? I KEEP TELLING YOU THAT PUB IS A PIG-PEN. HONESTLY, BROTHER. YOU'RE LUCKY YOU HAVE SOMEONE LIKE ME TO CARE FOR YOU, OR I JUST DON'T KNOW."

"heh, i know."

Papyrus started to comb the scarf around the front of his face, making Sans flinch, but otherwise he didn't lift a hand to protest, and absorbed the treatment with the same steady smile. She wondered how many times this scene has played out in the past. "HOLD STILL—IT'S IN YOUR EYE, TOO. TCH, I'LL HAVE TO WASH THIS SCARF NOW. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY."

Sans was sniggering. "i love you too, bro."

Papyrus's stern expression melted into a thin smile. "...AND YOU'RE MAKING IT VERY DIFFICULT TO STAY ANGRY WITH YOU."

Watching Papyrus cluck and peck over his brother like a mother hen, she felt a twang of some emotion she didn't like. Thankfully, a callous thought crushed it. _These guys are fucking weird._

Sans caught her sour look, seemed to remember something, and pushed away from Papyrus. "hey pap, my friend here is going to hang out with me a bit. we'll see you in the morning, huh?"

"OH? CERTAINLY. YOU'RE WELCOME TO STAY WITH US WHENEVER YOU NEED TO. A FRIEND OF SANS'S IS A FRIEND OF MINE."

Papyrus retreated to his own room and didn't have any further comment on her stay, which was a relief, because she'd hate to have to explain what she was about to do with his brother. Sans led the way upstairs to his own room, which was locked with its own key.

Stepping into the room (through the door this time), she wondered what was worth locking up. Sans fumbled to turn on the lamp, which turned out to be a flashlight set inside the light socket in lieu of a bulb. Now illuminated, the sparse piles of paper rubbish and old shirts were still worthless rubbish and shirts, and the trash-nado was at its regular speed.

"All right," she took charge, "Just sit on the bed and we'll get started."

He kicked off his slippers, dropped onto the bare mattress and looked up at her. She looked him over in return, and nearly started laughing.

She hadn't known Sans very long, but she was the observant type, and by this point had a fair grasp of his personality—that is, of a person who is fazed by absolutely nothing.  
She had watched him get on a stage, perform a (terrible) stand-up routine in front of a full house, get pelted with fruit and thank the audience for the pleasure.  
At one point earlier tonight, another dog at Grillby's had started chewing on his leg bone. Unlike Papyrus, who had thrown a tantrum when that happened to him, Sans only sat still and laughed until the dog got bored and found a table leg to chew, instead (and then Grillby threw the tantrum, getting Malk to flutter over and kick the dog away.)  
Hell, minutes ago he'd taken a dressing down from his brother right in front of her and didn't even wince. Even when _threatening her_ back in the woods, he was terribly relaxed about it, drawing confidence from the casual. He was careless, shameless and easygoing—just the kind of guy who was comfortable with anyone and anything.

So she was going to laugh, because he looked completely uncomfortable with this. He was fidgeting with the zipper of his jacket and blinking quickly, the glowing pits of his eyes darting around. It seemed that what he'd agreed to do didn't actually hit him until they were actually in his room, about to do it.

It was niggling at the back of her mind that he _was_ doing this—without a real awareness of what _this_ was or whether it would damage him—just to spare his brother the experience. For an obnoxious little asshole it was kind of a noble move, but it was just making her job harder, since his heart (so-to-speak) wasn't in it. If he was really against it, though, he would have just kicked her tail to the curb ...again. Her broken wing testified that it was clearly within his power. At the end of the day she had no idea what he was thinking, and she didn't really know how to approach this.

She sighed. "I sometimes hate this job, you know?" That probably wasn't the best way to allay his fears. "I'm going to skip most of my standard questions, except for one: do you have _any_ sexual history?"

He looked at the floor for a blink, cleared his throat and then grinned harder at her. "i read a history book that had some mating rituals in it, once. the naked pictures were pretty weird."

"...Right, that's a 'no'." She didn't know why she expected different. As an exotic mage, this was either going to be her greatest accomplishment or biggest failure. The challenge was a little exciting, but it was a shame there'd be no witnesses. Her old instructor would have gotten a massive kick out of this.  
Well, his brother was right next door—perhaps Papyrus would like to watch. She choked on another laugh. _Probably not._

Thinking she was laughing at him, perhaps (a feat yet to happen, despite his stand-up), a fist self-consciously curled up to his chest. "hey, what's funny?"

"Ah..." she squashed her ridiculous notions and sat down next to him. "Nothing. I'm going to try something. I hope you don't mind being my lab rat."

The look he gave her suggested that he rather did, but he didn't say anything.

"Honestly, I promise it won't hurt, else I'm really trash at my job." She reconsidered. "...Or it's a kink. Either way, you'll be fine. If it helps, I'll explain what I'm doing as I go."

He nodded and relaxed just a notch, blinking lazily again. "First thing I'm going to do is take a reading. It's just a measure of your soul and what I have to work with." She rolled onto her knees to face him and squeezed his shoulder. He felt firm beneath the fabric, but curiously not bony. "Can you take this off? The jacket, I mean."

She was interested in the answer—if not, he was a golem for sure. The sundry components of a golem were, in fact, its whole body, and her request would be the equivalent of asking someone to rip off their skin or detach an arm. Golem mages from her home traditionally wore special hats that served as their heads, and a sure way to 'kill' one was knocking it off.

"uh. sure," he said. The jacket came away easily, leaving a sleeveless white shirt and dark sweatpants. That didn't prove he _wasn't_ a golem, but it took a chip out of the pile. She picked at the bottom of his shirt (he flinched), drew it up, peered beneath and blinked at the sight he made: just a skeleton. The bones were clean and white up to his collar and wrists, where exposure turned them a dusty color. It looked like a bizarre tan line.

"...Huh. This is totally lame, and not at all surprising."

"what were you expecting, an ice cream machine?"

"Smartass." She thought about it for a second. "...I honestly don't know." She was half-afraid to find a compacted black hole of cheeseburgers and ketchup. She looked at his rumpled jacket on the bed and frowned. Something didn't add up.

He cringed another tick when her hand grabbed his bare shoulder—or, it didn't. Something stopped her hand before it reached bone. She recoiled. "The hell?"

For all her surprise, he looked uneasy. He didn't seem used to being scrutinized like this, and when she moved to touch him he got a little jumpy. _He realizes this job involves touching, right?_ She reserved her chiding, though (seemed his brother gave him enough) and tried another test, this time going for the midsection.

Her fingers sank into something... invisible? It felt... weird. It was doughy and solid, but lacked texture. She tried to press through and reach the spine, but it was like forcing repelling magnets together, and his ribs spasmed with another hiccup. " _hic_!"

"You feel that?"

"uh, tickles, kinda."

She gingerly brushed her claws across this weird phantom skin. Even though she couldn't see it at all, it was as physically real as it was impenetrable to her shade the first night they met. She closed her eyes and pushed her soul against it for good measure—no yield. _What IS this? Why can't I get through it? It's like it's not spirit energy at all, just-_

Her eyes snapped open as she recalled something said at the bar.

 _...magic here... monsters are just born with it._

She'd forgotten the dichotomy between material magic and spirit magic, but it was there and she was staring at it. She barely used the former because human souls simply didn't incorporate the stuff. Here, material magic had to be a prime constituent, if only to counter-balance the innate weakness of monster souls. It made sense. She was stupid for not considering it in relation to this job—it even explained what happened to her with Papyrus.

 _I stuck my finger straight into a goddamn bottle of mat-magic. Of course I got shocked._

"I'm a fucking idiot," she muttered, and then sat up straight with a sigh. "I don't think I've said this to a mark before... ever, but you should keep your clothes on."

This garnered a nonplussed look.

"The way you're made, it'll just make this easier, trust me."

A cross twitch to his brow spoke that he was offended, but she couldn't say at which part. He compliantly smoothed his shirt back down while she reached behind her head and unfastened the cord to her necklace. "Oh, before I forget..." _...make sure he wears it._ "Wear this. It'll, uh, help," she fibbed.

The crystal charm flashed a dull violet as it broke contact with her aura and settled against the front of his shirt. He bent a look at it while she reached over to tie the string, musing, "You've got some kind of magic skin. It's interesting; really solid and stable." She supposed it was a good look, giving him round, soft edges—else his clothes would hang directly on the bones and make him look like the world's shortest coat rack. "Normally material magic is more... fluid, I guess. Kinda erratic and hard to mold—more like what I found in your brother. His reading nearly killed me."

"heh, you were knocked out the rest of the day."

"Yeah, it was a fuckin' blast. Your couch sucks, by the way." Once the necklace was secure, she planted her hands on her thighs and squared her shoulders. "Anyway, I have to use my own magic to get through that stuff. Tell me if I hit a nerve or something."

He leaned back on his hands and gave a shifting shrug. "...ok."

Her grasp of material magic wasn't... great. She couldn't hit the powerful offensive spells like her peers back home, and she mostly used it to manipulate the wind while flying. That level of finesse would be serviceable here, she hoped.

She took the crystal he was wearing in one hand, laid the other on his stomach, drew a deep breath and closed her eyes again. She scraped together some beads of magic on the tips of her claws and tested them against his 'skin'. The solid magic parted for it like grease from a drop of soap, forging honeycomb-windows in his aura. Her shade glanced through and struck—color? She remembered the misty, bland auras of the many other monsters here, and the singular white heart of that shattered lizard-kid, but neither compared to this.

 _Magic over spirit, over mind, over matter, over magic..._ For a minute, it was going well. She thought she could see his soul's heart, but she was fighting to distinguish its exact hue, and pick out the veins of magic and spirit from the conscious impulses. _I got it... right... there-_

Then, he started talking.

"uhhh. heh. so this is a soul reading, huh? you don't look very excited. must be a dry read—dry as a bone, even."

 _Oh, for fuck's sake._ Joking was typical of him, but without even glancing at his nervously flickering aura she could see it wasn't jiving with his spirit, and if there was a more inappropriate moment for this kind of humor she couldn't imagine it—especially since it was breaking her concentration.

"you might say it's bone-ing, heh."

She bit her lip. "Shush." She wondered if that would suffice, the way it did for his brother.

It did—for about thirty seconds. "heh, sorry. just trying to lighten the mood. feeling a little _exboned_ , y'know?"

 _God, please stop_ , she silently pleaded as her shade dug an inch deeper, drawing a short gasp from her mark and making him stutter.

"i-it's just quiet as a tomb, here. if i weren't already a skeleton, i'd find the silence _ghouling_."

"Look," she snapped, pulling out and fixing him with a sharp look. "I realize this is some kind of retarded coping mechanism of yours, but if you could kindly _shut the fuck up and relax_ this would go a lot smoother."

He shrank a little into the mattress to escape her bark, but mercifully stopped talking. She sighed through her nose and reconsidered her approach. The reading had actually gone well, dumb jokes aside. In fact, apart from the mat-magic it was very familiar territory, which surprised her—in a good way, for a change.

A wry laugh started bubbling out. "Huh. Haha. Hahahaha...!"

"uh...?" Hesitation creeped onto his features again. She forced a straight composure.

"Hah, I've been totally over-thinking this. I know what to do. I'm going to start, so just tell me if you want to stop. And seriously, _relax_." She tumbled forward, her weight driving him onto his back. A wink of shock was quickly snuffed, leaving him blinking owlishly at her breast. "Oh," she said as she flicked a rogue lock of hair out of her eyes, "Another rule of mine: I touch you; _you don't touch me_. This shouldn't be painful-" She should probably quit saying that, before it stopped sounding convincing. "-but if it is, just let me know. No need to send me out the fucking window..."

"heheh..." he chuckled quietly, fingers clutching the fabric beneath him. "no promises."

 _Just do this_. She pressed her palm over the crystal charm to anchor her magic, and her shade worked in tandem with her free hand, skimming his torso and meeting a drag of magical resistance as she built a connection with his soul. His breath hitched for a moment, there was bright flash of panic behind her eyelids, and then a cooler, darker color settled in. His breathing steadied, although his ribs shook with every exhale.

Good—they were linked. Beneath the placid exterior his aura rippled, tense and giddy, and that anxiety fed into her excitement. Her shade wrapped around a stalk of electric blue near his spine and tugged, rewarding her with another squeaky hiccup from her mark. She then delicately played with his spirit's innards, teasing the ghosts of organs that were in not visible in any other dimension. He cringed and hissed at the invading touch, one knee jerking up while his toes twisted into the mattress.

"Hmmm, easy," she purred, even as she poured a lavender tongue of spirit magic down his ribs and through his belly. She felt shades of his own flip and twitch, a warm feeling echoing back to her, and she grinned fiercely. It had been a while since she had a task like this, and it was almost... fun. She remembered the part of the job she actually liked: the sensation and emotion she wouldn't experience otherwise. It was all new to him, so thanks to their link it would feel new to her, as well.

"ah... uhn?" he whimpered, confusion blotting his aura with an inky color.

She paused, her shade lingering around a ticklish rib. "Doing okay, there?"

He released a breath. "y-yeah? it's weird."

"Oh, you don't even know. Try _this_ ," she softly growled. Her shade swiped clean through him, the magic hotter than before, injecting a raw thread of _euphoria_ from her personal reserve that made his back arch and his chest inflate with a long, muffled sound. She barely gave him a chance to recover, sinking her hand into his hip to hold him to the bed while her shade danced through him again.

She caught the thread at its peak, pulled it out, wove it back into her own spirit and then fed it through her shade's fingertips back into him—that, there, was the real trick. She could do it over and over, creating a spiritual feedback loop that amplified its energy at each pass. If she timed it to their breathing— _in, out, in, out_ —and passed it through just the right spot, it worked seamlessly, and made the job quick.

She hit her own spot easily (with years of practice, she could hardly miss it), crooned a heady note and passed the pleasure back to him. She delighted in the strangled sound he made and the way he squirmed, even as she was drawing the thread back to sample the flavor. It tasted like surprise, something sweet and something sea-coral and something like o-zone and something so bitter-cloying he could scarcely breathe—but she forced him into the habit ( _in, out, in, out_ ) and firmly held him flat to the bed with both her soul and body.

 _Skeletons shouldn't need to breathe anyway_ , she thought dimly. She still needed air, though, so it was best not to tamper with the rhythm. She simply focused on their breathing— _in, out, in, out_ —and rocking back and forth as the cycle built intensity, cradling more and more spirit magic.

They were getting _close_. She could feel the familiar welling of heat, the tension of every phantom muscle, the hard, quick breaths—her shade was tingling with exertion, and the trembling under her hands was a sign that he was close to cracking, too. The sparking friction between their auras was almost too bright, and when she gave her mind's eye a break and peeled open her real ones, she saw that his were screwed shut—he was completely absorbed in their strange, mutual ecstasy.

Her shade mounted him, steeled for one last, good push, and _pressed_. She was rewarded with a bony kick to the shin as a long, strong, barely-suppressed wail shook the fringes of her _em-reading_ , and then a crash outside her vision made her jump. She scrambled to keep their souls leashed together—an interrupted link was one sure way to ruin a climax. After a moment, the searing noise and sensation both simmered into raw peace.

She slowly slackened their link, drew a deep breath and blinked, adjusting to the physical world again. She then noticed the cascaded pile of paper, socks and broken porcelain in the corner. It looked like his neat little trash-nado had fallen apart, dead on the floor. She snorted, amused.

 _I marked him so hard he broke his toy_ —yet he didn't make a sound himself, she noted. _So, he's one of THOSE types._ She liked to call them tongue-biters. For some dumb, macho reason or another certain marks fought not to cry out. After repeat visits she could always break that habit... although the mark had to be able to afford it.

She looked down at her work, smirking with satisfaction at his closed expression and heavy panting. _Little guy thinks he's tough, huh? How cute._ If she got another chance with this one (although she hoped not—the job was done, as far as she was concerned), she'd make it a personal mission to break him, too. _I'll make him howl loud enough to wake the neighbors, those nosy pricks._ His brother would be livid, which would be icing on the cake.

She sighed again, still recovering, herself, and eased her shade apart from his. Their last shared sensation was a fluttery palpitation under the ribs, making both souls thrum. Once the link was broken, she moved to take her necklace back. He stirred at the touch, looking up at her in a half-lidded daze.

She huffed and brushed her thumb over his brow, tracing a fine streak of sweat and wondering if that was another oddity produced by his false skin. "That was fun, huh?"

Finger bones curled lightly around her elbow. She had an impulse to smack him for breaking her rule, but let it slide for the moment. "you..." his breathless mumble trailed off and his eyes closed again, every inch of his body falling slack into slumber.

 _...And one of THOSE types, too_ , she thought.


	10. Burnt Offerings

She was in no danger of sleeping in. Papyrus came down the stairs the next morning with the subtlety of a crashing piano.

"IT'S TIME TO FIX BREAKFAST," he announced with cheer that would crack glass, and then marched into the kitchen.

She threw off her cloak and extricated herself from the lumpy couch, making a puddle of succubus on the carpet. Resting on that rotten piece of furniture wasn't doing her any favors, and a headache was freshly blooming, but...

She sat up and checked her necklace. The crystal charm glowed richly violet, like a tiny black light. It was hard not to look at it and feel accomplished.

She had successfully marked a _skeleton_ —without any necromancy, necrophilia or other taboo shit that would get a body thrown in jail or lynched for being a fucking weirdo. _I deserve a goddamn medal._ Her moment of pride was soured by the thought that nobody from her home world would ever know about it, much less hear from her again.

The shady man had a solution to that, she hoped. She had to get the charm back to him as soon as possible. It was supposed to be her "proof," after all.

"OH, YOU'RE AWAKE TOO," Papyrus observed from the kitchen doorway. "STICK AROUND AND YOU'LL GET TO TRY MY SOON-FAMOUS OMELETTE! IT'S PART OF AN ADEQUATE BREAKFAST."

 _Sure, why the fuck not?_ She'd hardly pass on free food. She rose, gave the couch a disdainful kick and plodded towards the kitchen. Her body sorely regretted not sleeping on that soft (albeit grimy) mattress in Sans's room, but that was another rule she preferred to keep—number three, was it? _Never share a bed._

The found the table and slouched into a chair, carefully folding her wings around the back. She wrinkled her nose at the hissing and smoke coming from the stove, wondering why breakfast smelled like melted rubber. In short order Papyrus appeared by her side, wearing an apron that read something humorous, she supposed, from stitched bone-shapes. He put down a plate of eggs that looked like they had been fire-blasted through a rusty cheese grater.

"This is an omelette? These look pretty..." _scorched, destroyed, inedible_ \- "...scrambled."

"DID I SAY IT WAS? HMM. I PUT IT ON THE FIRE, JUST LIKE THE RECIPE SAID." His eye sockets squished thoughtfully. "MAYBE NEXT TIME I SHOULD USE A SKILLET ON TOP OF THE FIRE."

"You think?" she snipped.

Papyrus heedlessly prepared two more plates of the egg-slag and didn't mind that she wasn't touching hers. He stepped towards the stairs and shouted up, "SANS! I'VE ALREADY MADE BREAKFAST. YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE TO YOUR POST IF YOU DON'T GET UP!"

She stabbed a pellet of not-egg from her plate with a claw and inspected it like a tracker dissecting a bear dropping. Behind her, Papyrus's shouting increased in volume.

"SANS? SANS! DON'T MAKE ME COME UP THERE!" The threat had a three-second grace period before Papyrus followed through, stomping up the steps. The next minute was filled with the drumming of knuckles on a wooden door and a tall, nagging voice. "SANS. SANS. SANS. SANS! I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE! WAKE UP! SANS!" _bang bang bang._

Her headache was coming back. It brought with it a morbid thought—one that compelled her to get up and check on her mark.

"IF YOU'RE TRYING TO SKIP WORK BY PRETENDING YOU CAN'T HEAR ME, THAT WON'T WORK AGAIN. YOU'RE ONLY DELAYING THE INEVITABLE. SANS!" _bang bang bang._

She walked up the stairs and tapped Papyrus on the shoulder, interrupting his tirade. "Hey, valiant effort over here Corporal Cuntwaffle, but can I try?"

Papyrus stepped back, oblivious to the scathing words in favor of her offer to help. "ARE YOU A KNOCKING ENTHUSIAST, TOO? I KNOW SANS THINKS IT'S HILARIOUS."

She turned the knob and opened the door. "OH," he said, looking surprised. "IT'S NORMALLY LOCKED."

"I wonder why," she muttered, rolling her eyes and stepping into the dark room. Some morning daylight seeped through the window, making Sans's room look dingy on top of its regular untidiness. She looked where she had left him last night, and he was still there, utterly unmoved hours later.

She stood over Sans and nudged him with one foot. "Hey."

Not even a snore. That was disconcerting. _Wasn't this guy sawing logs when I first met him in here?_ She gave him another, stronger nudge. "Hey! Com'on. If you don't get up, your brother's going to have either a heart attack or a concussion, depending on which one of us gets fed up first."

Nothing. His eye sockets stayed closed, which probably meant sleeping—didn't it?

 _Oh, shit._ Was he dead? Well, more dead—or whatever stage of dead is past skeletal. She was suddenly very concerned for her exotic achievement. _Not going to have a lot to brag about if my mark fucking carks it the morning after, now will I?_

She knelt by his side and put a hand on his chest, going for a quick reading. Once linked to a soul the first time, it gets easier every time after. She barely had to brush aside the magic skin to get a glimpse of a phantom heart, pulsing languidly in midnight tones.

 _Okay, not dead._ _Just super out-cold._ Papyrus's fretting at the door suggested this was not normal, and she couldn't argue with that. Sans's pulse was just a beat above comatose. She sighed; this was likely her doing. She wondered if failing to account for a flesh-and-blood body had caused her to overtax her mark's spiritual resonance, or...

She glanced at her crystal charm, blanking on an explanation. Hopefully, all Sans needed was some more rest, but she'd have to buy that off his brother somehow. She left the room and confronted the taller skeleton.

Papyrus could tell something was amiss, and since it concerned his brother, that only amplified the crease of worry over his brow. "IS EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT? IT'S AWFULLY QUIET IN THERE. NORMALLY MY BROTHER'S SNORING COULD WAKE THE DEAD. ...WHICH IS USUALLY ME, BEING A SKELETON AND ALL."

"Yes, I picked up on that," she deadpanned. _And the fact that you noticed the snoring, too._ "Listen, I think your brother could use a break. Can't he just take the day off?"

"WHAT?" Papyrus boggled at this. "VIGILANCE HAS NO DAYS OFF. THE SENTRY POSTS HAVE TO BE MANNED, EVEN IF IT'S BY MY LAZY LUMP OF A BROTHER. IF HE WON'T DO IT, WHO WILL?"

The suggestion spilled out of her before she properly considered it. "I will?" _Fuck_.

Papyrus cocked a look of astonishment at her. "YOU WILL? HUH. YOU'RE NOT A MEMBER OF THE SENTRY SQUAD, THOUGH. I'M NOT SURE WE HAVE A PROTOCOL FOR THAT."

 _Here's your fucking OUT; take it._ "If it's not against the rules, who will complain?" _Fuck, fuck, fuck, that's not out. That's IN. Did I eat stupid for breakfast?_

She continued to berate herself on the way to the sentry station outside the woods. Fortunately, Papyrus took her word that she knew the way, and didn't insist on a guided tour of her patrol route. It gave her time to walk in the cold and consider her life choices.

On the outskirts of Snowdin, she encountered some monster children having a snowball fight around a white knoll. One of the participants intrigued her: a snowman. Its twig-arms were tearing wads of snow out of its own body and throwing them at the kids, triggering bursts of snowflakes and laughter. She stood and watched the game until an older rabbit appeared to shepherd the children back indoors.

She approached the snowman, who was collecting fresh powder from the ground to replenish its body. Its coal eyes seemed to wink at her in greeting as the row of buttons that made its mouth wiggled. "Hello~!"

She cut the formalities. "Who made you?"

"Hmm~? I don't know what you mean. I'm Snowy the snowman~!"

"Uh-huh." She plucked the snowman's head off its balled torso and gave it a critical look.

"H-Hey~! That's kind of rude~!"

"Shut up, you stack of frozen bird shit." She found what she was looking for on the bottom of its 'neck': a glyph drawn in red paste, impressed on the solid snow. The intricacies of the brand eluded her, but its purpose was clear.

 _So these people do know how to make golems._ This one in particular was extremely crude, but it opened the possibility of more advanced specimens. She stowed that nugget of information away in her mind and discarded the snow head, letting it roll down the hill.

"H-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-y~!" it warbled until its buttons were buried in the drifts, muffling it.

When she found Sans's station, it wasn't much improved from the last time she saw it. There was an empty bottle of ketchup under the counter and a fresh layer of snow on the roof. Upon close scrutiny, she discovered etchings in blue ink all over the counter-top and wooden supports. The doodles of skulls and flames were interesting for about six seconds, and the cartoonish renderings of Papyrus were faintly amusing, yet she had no luck deciphering the foreign lettering that made up the rest of the graffiti.

On the edge of the counter, however, concealed from passers-by was something drawn thickly into the wood. If not for the splashes of blue it would seem carved by a knife, rather than by ball-point repetition. The design tripped a memory until she recognized it: the symbol Sans drew in the woods.

 _I should know what this is,_ she thought. The answer didn't come to her, though, even after a few hours passed at the station. Restless with boredom, she paced around the booth until her feet grew sore, and then sat on the edge of the counter, hugging her cloak for warmth.

 _This is such a shit job. Who does this all day? I haven't seen a single goddamn person._

A pulse of dark light drew her attention to her necklace, and that distraction reminded her of her mission. She didn't need to be mucking around, doing other people's jobs. She should be going to consult her client, but she had a vested interest in whether her mark survived last night—mostly for pride's sake.

In the meantime, she worried about her crystal charm's transformation. Normally crisp, light lavender, the charm was now blighted with a heavy indigo color. It didn't buzz or burn beneath her fingertips the way material magic did, nor did it respond to her aura the way spirit energy should. Any normal magic would have passed clean through it, anyway—the charm was a conductor, not a container. It didn't _keep_ energy like this... whatever this was.

"hey."

"Shi-!" She spun around. Behind her, Sans was squatting on the short chair (it fit his stature perfectly), arms folded on the counter and grin looking particularly crafty. He appeared entirely unruffled at his post, as if he'd been there the whole time.

"made you jump? didn't know you were part rabbit. maybe this job's making you a little hare-brained."

Her annoyance caved in to relief. "Shut up."

"don't get hopping mad, now. you'll only pull your _hare_ out."

 _This unbelievable fucker, always with the jokes._ "Keep working on your material and don't quit your day job, chuckles. How do you feel?"

"aww, you really worried about me? i didn't think you cared. i didn't think you _carrot_ all."

She screwed up a scowl. "One more rabbit joke and I'm going to punch your face into a goddamn salad."

Sans put his hands up, not dropping the game for a second. "hey, i didn't mean any harm. _lettuce_ just be friends."

"Ugh." She gave up, grinding her palms into her forehead. "I hate you so much right now."

The skeleton settled into a slacking position. "heheheh... okay, i'll stop. i guess i owe you, anyway. pap says you took my shift."

"Yeah, well..." She shrugged off the gratitude. Anything that wasn't money was awkward, coming from a mark. "You were pretty much out of it. How'd you sleep?"

"heh... good. i haven't slept that well since..." He finally exchanged the grin for a relaxed smile. "...since a long time. that was a pretty cool trick you pulled on me."

"I've never had a mark compliment me on how well he _slept_ afterwards, but I'll take it."

"heh." He looked aside, considering something. "that power you have... you could've just forced me into it, couldn't you?"

Her broken wing throbbed with a pang of remembrance. _Maybe._ "I don't play that way," she simply said.

"huh. i can respect that."

"A lot of clients don't like it, anyway. They want to feel like the ones in power. And the marks that don't..." She grinned devilishly. "Well, they pay extra."

Sans scratched his head, looking either intrigued or perplexed, from her perspective. "do you really make a lot of money doing that?"

"Tch... depends. In a place like this, no." Her one client here had paid her handsomely, but it was just the one client, and it wasn't even for a straight job. Between shady alleyways, bad jokes and horrible food, dealing with this monster society was more confounding by the day. She sighed miserably. "...I don't belong here."

"yeah, this is my sentry booth, y'know? you should get your own."

She pushed herself off the counter and straightened her cloak, facing the road back into town. "Oh shut up, I don't want anything to do with your stupid, pointless job. I've got places to be, anyway." She walked away with a brusque, "See you around."

"see ya."

She was back at the hotel by nightfall. It was plenty of time to get a meal at the diner and curse the lack of bathrooms in the underground. She had to stake out a ditch near a lava-filled creek for _that_ business, and tried to focus more on not burning her tail than the lack of privacy or sanitary paper.

At any rate, after getting washed and refreshed she tread into the alley, crystal prize clutched in her hand. A twenty-minute wait after ringing the bell was at last rewarded with the whisper of an opening door and a rush of hot orange light.

The shady man blended into the nearest shadow and stood at courteous attention. "Did you succeed?"

She bounced down from the lid of a dumpster and displayed the pendant. "Yeah. You wanted to see this?"

He outstretched a hand. After a moment's hesitation she passed it to him. "So, what is that stuff? All I can tell is that it isn't magic."

"No... it's not," he said distantly, rapt with the charm held at eye-level. Its facets glinted like sapphire around a steady tongue of black flame. "This is very good, very interesting. I had wondered if sexual energy would be a strong enough stimulus, and you've proven it is."

She shook her head, staggered by the notion. "What, you're—you're saying all that succubus shit I told him was true?"

"Hmm?" He broke his concentration to pass her a curious look.

"Nothing, I just..." She drew a breath and pressed her luck. "What do you mean?"

The invitation to explain seemed to be all he ever wanted. He gesticulated vividly as he talked, hands weaving in almost dizzying patterns.

"This energy is just another form of the same medium. Anger, rage, bliss, ah—there's degrees of it all. Some is very powerful. The humans, they have this quality, you might call 'courage' or, ah... something similar. It's a very real, driving force—powerful enough to bind a soul to a body after death, even. We've been studying it for a long time.

"But it's not magic. It looks similar, but it has its own properties, operates on its own rules, measures on different wavelengths, and performs differently under different stimuli. Strong emotions are the best stimuli, but sexual energy is not so different. It's biological on the surface, yes, but it's also rooted in something _primal_ , powerful—something that drives a soul. It can even bring old, deep-seated feelings to the surface—things that can't be extracted any other way." He clutched the pendant and pointed at her. "When you told me what you do, I realized there might be a way to harvest that energy."

"And this 'energy' I got for you, there, is enough to power a gate to get me out of here?"

The steeping shadows under his hat were just as cryptic as his, "Perhaps."

She shrugged, more than a little exasperated. "Well, why...? If the energy's all that matters, why did you make me get it from either of those chucklefucks? I could have used anyone down here, and it might've been a hundred times easier. Hell, I could have gotten it from you, or even ME, and cut out the fucking middle-man."

He twisted the crystal between his fingers and held it under his nose, contemplative again. He answered her, but then didn't. "It was Sans, wasn't it?"

She frowned, wondering how he could know that and why _that_ was important, either.

His voice turned clinically morose, like one regretting something but not really feeling sorry about it. "I figured so. It's a real shame."

She neither liked nor understood the implications. "The fuck is that supposed to mean?"

The pendant disappeared into the pitch of his jacket and he purposefully strode away. "I have much work to do. Return in three days and I'll have a report."

"Three days?" she reeled. "The hell am I supposed to do until then?"

He waved one hand dismissively over his shoulder. "I'm sure someone of your occupation can stay... occupied."

She once more rushed at his retreating figure. "Hey, you weed-faced, bruised dillhole!"

Like the other insults, it didn't stop him from vanishing.


	11. Echoes and Mirrors

She spent a day strolling around Hotland. There were places where the gravel singed the bottoms of her feet, and places where the heat and pressure were impassable, but then there were a few nice oddities and cooler parts—in particular, a cave full of melted rock formations, shiny minerals and geodes. It made a nice spot for meditation, although by the end of it, all she could dwell on was that she was stuck inside a cave inside of a much larger cave inside of a magic bubble, and still waiting on a way out.

Distantly through the sulfuric fog she could see heavy scaffolding, monsters apparently at work on some massive steel edifice. Most of the walking paths she could see heading towards it were barricaded, although tiny metal airplanes buzzed between the construction site and the populated district.

She sat watching as a pair of these drones approached from opposite directions and then... stopped in mid-air to have a chat. She marveled at their conversation from the ground.

"Ugh, like, you're in my way."  
"Like I care."  
"No, like _I_ care. You should respect my boundaries, or something."  
"Ugh! You're so rude!"  
"No, you!"  
"Why I oughta-"

Alarmingly, the aircraft started butting noses. One impact drew sparks and a miffed "ouch!" and then the pair locked wings and started spinning wildly, little engines growling ferociously. The stiff, twisting metal parts looked like a paralytic dog fight.

"Ow, my wing! Let go, you-!"  
"No, you let go!"  
"No, you!"  
"You!"  
"You!"

She missed the last of that argument as both slowly careened out of sight. She decided she'd seen enough of Hotland for the day.

The next day, she set out for Waterfall. The wetlands were easier on her feet, yet bogged down her pace, which wasn't the worst problem to have since she wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere in particular. The dark scenery was much easier on the eyes, as well, and gave her the chance to admire the scattered clumps of bioluminescent fungi and jagged crystal formations buried in the marsh.

She found a wooden pier that was a fair place to rest her legs and pick the sludge and grass out from between her toes. A pool of black water just beneath served for a mirror, and she smirked at her appearance. Mud had nearly taken over her outfit, and tumbling water at her back ensured her clothes and hair would stay sticky-damp, plastered to her skin in curly dark stripes.

She shrugged and looked away, not intending to make a nice impression on her reflection, anyway. She cast a bored gaze across the watery basin and saw a familiar structure at the top of the next hill. Getting up to approach it, she discovered a plain wooden booth. Much of the plywood was rotten and mildewed, the counter-top was covered in blue graffiti, and bizarrely enough, there were clumps of un-melted snow on the roof.

Sans cracked open one eye and almost made an effort to sit up straight as she approached.

"The hell? I thought you worked in the woods."

"i work here, too," he explained with a wink. "but only on days that end with 'y'."

Being illiterate, the joke sailed over her. "Okay?"

"so, what brings you to waterfall? got some business today?"

"No," she said with more petulance than intended. "Just walking around."

"huh." He nearly stretched backwards out of his chair with a long yawn. He then walked out from the booth and stepped over to a blue flower on a tall, glowing stalk. "you check these out yet?"

"What, the flowers? I've seen them around."

"yeah, they're pretty neat. you talked to one yet?"

"What?"

At her confusion, his grinning expression lit up. "heh, com'ere. i'll show you something cool."

He walked around a short waterfall and down its earthen bank. She followed, just bored enough to indulge this field trip. They turned another bend, and where the stream flattened into a marsh a long row of blue flowers bloomed along the creases of water.

"echo flowers," he explained. "they repeat the last thing they heard. you just give 'em a nudge, like this." Sans grabbed the stalk of the nearest one and shook it gently. The flower produced a warbly sound like bending sheet metal, and then a string of words that had the same tone and inflection as the last thing Sans said.

She blinked, mildly impressed. "Huh, that's somethin'."

"yeah." He stood back and gestured to one, inviting her to, "give it a try."

She stepped towards the azure patch and rubbed her chin, thinking of a word to test out loud. Lamely, the first thing that came to mind was, "Echo." A few of the flowers absorbed the sound with a faint glistening along the petals. She then brushed three of them with her foot, and as soon as their chorus reached her ears she realized a logical error.

The flowers all said "echo," but in her language—not the monsters'. Insentient flora was immune to _em-reading_ , as a matter of course.

Sans recoiled from the foreign noise with a confused grimace. He then stuck his hands in his pockets, rolled his shoulders and affably chuckled. "heheh, i guess they're broken? nice job, lady. that's a first." His voice lowered. "you should be careful what you say."

That sounded distinctly threatening, but he shrugged off her bewildered stare and checked his wrist, as if he were wearing a watch (he wasn't.) "eh, six minutes left on my shift. i guess i can call it early. wanna go to grillby's with me?"

After walking all day without a snack, food wasn't a terrible idea. "Yeah, sure."

"cool." he took her hand. "we'll take a shortcut. it'll work this time, heh."

She was pulled back around the corner leading up the bank, and then the next blink was the darkest, hardest and coldest shut-eye she'd ever experienced in the space of a second. On the next second her feet touched snow, and she cast a fluttering look around her suddenly bright surroundings.

They were in Snowdin. A rabbit and a monster with a heavy green arrow-shaped head looked over at their sudden appearance across the street, but then seemed to recognize the skeleton next to her and looked away dismissively.

"What the unholy fuck-"

He let go of her hand and walked around to Grillby's front door. "heheh, nice shortcut, huh?"

 _Motherfucking sorcery, more like it._ She chased him into the pub, uncertain whether to pursue an explanation. She doubted she'd get a straight answer, no matter what.

The redbird was at his usual station, reclining backwards on his elbows against the bar and greeting patrons with the highest courtesy.

"Heya Sans, you son of a donkey. Back for more punishment? You even brought our favorite whore." He clucked and winked at her. "How's it shakin', sweetcheeks?"

"Shove it up your ass," she retorted, and got comfortable on a bar stool.

Grillby turned around from arranging bottles on the back shelf, looked at Sans and pointed at his wrist (which did happen to have a nice-looking stainless-steel watch.)

Malk caught the motion and whistled, "Phew, six minutes early? Some kind of labor strike going on with the sentry squad? For shame, Sans." Behind the beak, his face crinkled into a mischievous smile. "I should tell your brother."

Sans snickered. "i knew you were a bird, but didn't take you for a stool pigeon, malk."

"It's a livin', friend. So wha'dda you two want?" Grillby turned towards them both with a prim nod.

"Ah, some fries will be fine," she said.

"burg for me, grillbz."

While waiting on their orders, Sans swept her with a prying look. "where'd your nice little necklace go?"

Her hand reflexively reached for her breast, grasping a crystal-shaped spot of empty air. "Oh, uh. I left it at the hotel." It was only half a lie, she determined, and Sans didn't challenge it, anyway. If she didn't know any better, she'd say that the look he turned away from her was disappointment.

They were allowed to eat in peace, Malk busy greeting the steady trickle of customers coming in for the evening rush. Among them, Trent the rabbit stole a spot at the end of the bar and acknowledged the group. "Hey Grillby, Malk, Sans—ah," he hung up on eye contact with the succubus. "Good to see ya again, lady. Did we even get your name?"

"I didn't give it out," she replied, and went back to her dinner. Trent pursed his lips around his buck teeth, looking injured, and Malk laughed. "The whore's a real social butterfly."

"we're workin' on it," Sans supplied, tipping her a knowing grin. It made her temper seethe. _I'm still not your pal, and definitely not your fucking buddy project. You're all dead to me the second I set foot off this planet._

Trent shook his head like a cow shrugging off flies and reached out towards the barkeep. "Ugh, Grillby, you gotta hook me up with some ice brew. My mother's driving me crazy."

Grillby moved for the beer while Malk questioned, "Sheesh, what is it this time?"

The rabbit splayed his arms across the bar dramatically. "She's all up my ass about work again. 'Trenny, you can't be a paper boy all your life. It's not a real job. Your sister Mariel is going to school in the capital, gonna be a real dentist. Why can't you be more like her?' She's takin' pot-shots at my self esteem like it's open season. I didn't even do anything this time! Why's she gotta bring Mariel into this? That prissy little—oh, thanks Grillbz." He paused to quaff the dark bottle he was handed. "Ach. So, my sister, right? A self-righteous little prick. What's the female equivalent of a prick?"

One of Malk's eyes darted to the succubus, and his beak was half-open when her acidic look stopped him in his tracks.

"Honey, if you're going to call someone a cunt, just go for the gold. Don't sugar-coat it." Cinny neatly somersaulted onto the bar, large ears cushioning the landing.

"That's why I like you, Cinny. Always got perfect timing," Malk lauded her arrival.

Everyone at the bar was startled by a loud, sharp belch. Five pairs of eyes (six, counting the beagle who turned around from two tables away) fixed on Sans, appalled. The skeleton leaned back and rolled his fingertips across the bar. "eheheheh, that was a good one. like, eight out of ten, right?"

Cinny shifted away from him, wafting an ear in front of a nose she didn't appear to have. "Lawdy, that one shook the table."

Malk belted out, "Holy flaming shit, Sans, what if there were kids in here? They'd be deaf now. Poor, stupid deaf children with their little eardrums blown out by your big fat mouth." His head twisted to look at the empty plate across from him. "And hot damn, that burger is just _gone_. There's not even a crumb left. Where did you even put it?! It's not a _contest_ , you know that, right? You can give a burger, like, more than ten seconds to breathe and enjoy its existence before you hoover the damn thing."

Something about that triggered a burst of laughter from Trent. "Ha, hahaha, remember that one time it was a contest, though?"

Grillby turned his back and shook his head, dismayed at the memory. Malk lit up with another shrewd grin. "Haw! Yeah, Grillby was the real loser that time. Had to pony up all that free food." He stuck one primary feather in Sans's direction and then narrowed his gaze at the only member of the audience not clued in, the succubus. "Let me tell you about this midgety bastard right here-"

A large grey wolf loomed up to the bar, mildly reproving, "Nobody says 'midget' anymore, Malk. It's really insensitive. They prefer 'little people,' you know?"

Malk vented his spleen at the newcomer. "Hey Rez, who asked for politically-correct soapboxing in the middle of a bar? Anybody? Oh, wait, it was nobody? Fucking great. Shut your ass up."

"Hiiiiii Rez," Cinny sang, and then addressed the bar. "And listen, that one time was awful. You boys should not have made that stupid contest."

Sans appeared pleased with himself. "i won, didn't i?"

"Yeah, you ate everybody under the table, ya damn black hole," Malk shot back.

The mental image the succubus conjured from that statement was overwhelming. Once she started laughing, perplexed looks passed around the bar until Malk's countenance melted with slight revulsion. "Oh wow, I didn't realize how bad that sounded until now. Thanks, whore."

"SANS! THERE YOU ARE."

Assorted looks of surprise turned towards the entrance, where Papyrus appeared. Trent groaned, Grillby's back stiffened, and she couldn't discern whether the flash of recognition from Sans was good-surprised or bad-surprised (he kept his lame grin, either way.)

The skeleton marched up to the bar, his height and broad shoulders a match for Rez's, she noted. She idly began to wonder which would win a fight as Papyrus dropped an accusatory look onto the empty plate. "THAT BURGER GOT EATEN SIX MINUTES SOONER THAN USUAL. DID YOU SKIP OUT EARLY FROM YOUR POST?"

"Haw haw!" Malk cackled.

Sans's eye-lights roamed a little, as if questing for a response, but then Papyrus brightened with a better idea than reprimanding him. "OH, YOU NEED TO COME HOME, ANYWAY. THERE'S SOME WOMAN ON THE PHONE."

Another quiet ripple of shock passed around the bar. "don't let another lady sell us forty jars of mayonnaise, bro."

Papyrus sharpened an aggrieved look. "I KNOW NOT TO DO THAT, THANK YOU MUCH. I'D ONLY MEANT TO GET SPF 40 MAYONNAISE. AND IT'S NOT A SALESWOMAN THIS TIME, ANYWAY. SHE SAID SHE'S A DOCTOR."

The group shared another round of quiet confusion, and Papyrus joined them by thumbing his chin. "COME TO THINK OF IT, I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW SHE GOT OUR NUMBER, BUT SHE ASKED FOR YOU. I'D BRING THE PHONE HERE, BUT YOU KNOW THE CORDLESS SIGNAL DOESN'T REACH THAT FAR, SO I'VE GOT HER ON HOLD BACK AT THE HOUSE."

"welp," Sans chirped. He wagged his brows facetiously at the group before hopping down to join his brother. "aren't i popular with the ladies this week?"

The pair left, and she didn't see either again that night. At any rate, nobody saved her from footing the bill for both her fries and Sans's burger, so as a consolation Trent bought her a few drinks that smacked of hard liquor and bittersweet fruit. She didn't mind listening to the rabbit moan about his family life so much, after that.

After excusing herself from the bar, she had the great idea to walk back to her hotel. By the time she ventured into Waterfall much of the alcohol in her system had evaporated, which was a blessing for her ambulant coordination and not as much for her sense of time, considering how much longer she had to trek before getting to Hotland.

She took a break on a rickety platform, her gaze drawn across another basin brimming with echo flowers. Rather than drink in the pacific ambiance and let the beauty of it quiet her temper, her musings cracked with a silly, loud idea.

Flowers as far as she could throw twinkled at her, "Fuckberries!" She then mustered a draught of wind magic and hurled it down the valley, stirring up her swear word into a cascading cacophony. She tittered as the word kept reverberating like weird, vulgar thunder, seemingly consuming the whole underground. Never mind that nobody else present understood the expletive; it was hilarious. _I am officially twelve years old, yep._

Far below, she heard a shout. It sounded disgruntled. She had to crawl to the other side of the pier and squint over the edge to pick out some lights shining out of a small house. "WHAT?!" she barked back.

A shaft of toothy light spilled out of the igloo-like dwelling, and after more squinting through the dark she recognized the fish-lady storming out of her fishy house. Undyne started shouting and shaking her fist at the succubus, although it took the latter an extra moment to _em-read_ down the great distance.

 **"...THIS IS, SOME KIND OF CIRCUS? TAKE YOUR FREAKING GIBBERISH DOWN THE ROAD AND LET THE REST OF US SLEEP IN PEACE!"**

She didn't know why, "MAKE ME!" seemed like a good retort, nor the gust of wind magic she used to make the echo flowers carry it down, but watching Undyne square into a combative stance and gnash her jagged teeth gave her a perverse thrill.

 **"OHHHHH, YOU'RE ASKING FOR IT! THE HURT TRAIN IS GONNA MAKE A STOP AT YOUR STATION AND STOMP YOUR TAIL INTO THE CURB IF YOU DON'T CUT IT OUT!"**

The succubus had to wonder whether she had gone mad, she was just getting mad, or there was something about the blueberry schnapps that was making her...

"BITCH, I WILL FIGHT YOU!"

...belligerent.

Undyne rolled up a shirt sleeve she didn't have. **"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE ASKING FOR, PUNK!"**

"I THINK I FUCKING DO, CHOWDER CUNT!"

 **"WHAT?!"** Undyne screeched. **"THE HELL DID YOU CALL ME?"**

The tiny voice in her brain asking her to politely stop was overwritten by the part that insisted, "I SAID, I'M GOING TO RAM MY FOOT UP YOUR CLAMMY TAINT SO HARD ALL YOUR KIDS WILL COME OUT CROOKED!"

At this, the fish-woman howled and ripped her own night-shirt in half (it would have been a scandalous display if she weren't wearing a red crop top and pair of briefs beneath it.) The succubus's _em-reading_ nicely translated the sound she made to, 'NGAAAAAAAAHHH!'

The webbed index finger stabbed in her direction brooked no further argument. **"GET DOWN HERE! YOU. ME. NOW."**

"BITCH, GLADLY." She leapt off the pier, wings unfurling to catch her descent, and she immediately regretted the rash move when her broken wing buckled in pain, pitching her into freefall. Her claws barely caught a steep slope of muddy turf, and she was able to recover enough to land at the bottom of the valley in one piece, albeit messily.

The second she had scrambled together her bearings Undyne was upon her, furious cries telegraphing each punch. The succubus pedaled her way out of each swing, Undyne's strong arms ringing like lead pipes through the air. Although her dodges were successful, she lost all her ground almost immediately, and resorted to dropping on her back in order to catch Undyne in a leg-sweep.

The fish-woman flipped backwards to avoid it, which gave the succubus enough time to spring back and size up her opponent. Undyne was a little taller and more wiry, yet pound-for-pound an impressively good match, she realized. Her sharp teeth and raw power in this unarmed fight put the succubus's agility and tearing claws on edge.

 _I am a motherfucking dragon_ , she reminded herself, and then checked that memory with, _Well, half of one. But even half a dragon is enough to take this bitch down._

 **"NGAAAH!"** Undyne rushed in again, cutting off her breath with a vicious left hook. The succubus tried to buy it back with a slap of wind magic that made the fins around Undyne's face flutter. The fish-woman's ugly mouth twisted into a grin. **"What was that? It tickled!"**

 _I am a dragon, and my mat magic is garbage._ Well, it worked great for picking this fight. She lashed out with her claws, scratching the tatters of Undyne's night-shirt, but the fish-woman bounced out of the way of her next two attacks and used the momentum to launch herself into the air off a rocky bank. The succubus rolled out of the way of the aerial attack, and glimpsed Undyne punching the boulder she was just standing on with enough force to _crack the solid granite in half_.

She might have made a mistake, here.

Undyne wasn't giving her a chance to catch her breath, either. Another flying leap brought in two more fists to dance around. **"Come and get a big bite of this knuckle sandwich, you batty loud-mouthed bitch!"**

 _Not the first time I've been called that_ , she foggily realized beneath the panic that was clouding her already impaired judgment. Her retreat was shrinking as a steep cliff and waterfall encroached on her heels, and if she didn't want to take a major dive she was going to have to _actually make an attack sometime this goddamn year._

She balled her fist and swung hard. Undyne's hand snapped around it in a perfect, vice-like catch. **"Hah! Nice try, pu-"**

She then caught two clawed feet with her gut, not expecting the succubus to prop all her weight on her own tail to deliver the kick. Her insult sputtered out as she doubled over, and Undyne released the succubus's fist to clutch at the shallow gash in her midriff.

 **"Holy hell, that was a good one,"** she wheezed, grinning maniacally and shaking her head hard enough to make her ponytail flap like an absurd banner. The succubus blankly wondered if Undyne had a fetish for this sort of punishment. The fish-lady straightened her stance and beamed her a feral look. **"How about THIS?"**

Undyne leapt high, fist poised to connect with the succubus's face. When she ducked to avoid it, the flying fist instead grounded Undyne's roundhouse kick, and the succubus absorbed every inch of it, falling for the feint so hard it knocked the wind out of her body-

...and her body off the cliff. She dizzily watched Undyne howl, pump a fist in victory and then shrink out of sight as a wide plane of water reached out to drag the succubus under.

The water hit harder than the kick, and it was _cold_ and _dark_ and _oh fuck dark dark deepcold-_

 _...and..._

 _d...a...r...k._

 _..._

She woke up in a nest of regret. Her limbs were numb and her brain was too waterlogged to process the dull grey of daylight swimming overhead. She gawped at the bland under-sky, wondering what that moon was doing in her vision's horizon, until conscious thoughts decided to visit again.

 _This place can't see the moon...?_

She jerked awake, noticing in the next instant that her legs and wings were ensnared in... fat, yellow vines? Snakes? They bobbed on the surface of the water, holding her afloat.

"...the fuck...?" she rasped, her throat dry despite the rest of her body being soaked. The 'moon' drifted around to show its face—big glassy eyes, slimy ochre skin and all—and she felt a strip of suction-cups ( _oh good god they're TENTACLES_ ) tighten around her thigh.

The _voice_ that boomed from its gaping, toothless smile sounded like a castrated seagull drowning in a tuba.

"Heeeeeeeeeeey you're awaaaaaaake~"

 _nope nope nope nope nope nope NOPE NOPE NOPE_

Four shredded tentacles, a tidal wave of tears that tasted like onions and enough wind magic to kick-start a monsoon later, she crawled out of Waterfall and never looked back.


	12. Elementary

"I might have a problem," she muttered through a gusty sigh.

She couldn't have picked a more fitting place to admit it. Grillby's was nearly empty before the lunch rush, and the morning winter-esque gloom made a soothing contrast to the warmly-colored halo surrounding its barkeep. The fire monster was taking his time cleaning glasses as he tended his only patron at the bar. His 'translator' was mercifully absent, and when she asked, Grillby said Malk had work with his family some days of the week.

"That flying piece of rat shit has an actual family?" she had snarled.

 _'Malk has a niece and nephew that run a lumber business out in the woods. He's been their caretaker since they were hatchlings, and they're very fond of him. I am, too, so I'd ask you refrain from insulting him until he can be here in person to appreciate it.'_

Grillby was an okay guy, she had to admit. His stoic tolerance of his regulars' antics spoke well enough of his character, but he was also well-kempt and generally pleasant (again, in contrast to the regular disarray of his establishment.) He made such an odd bar-couple with the loud, brash and sloppy redbird that she wondered if it was their polar personalities that actually made their dynamic work so long and well.

 _Complementary spirits_ , she thought, and that brought her own problem to the fore of her mind with a frown.

 _'Difficulty with your client?'_ Grillby hazarded a guess. There was the other thing she liked about him: he was easy to talk to (a must-have quality in a barkeep, she reckoned), and didn't seem bothered by the fact that a stranger from another land could read his words as easily as a close confidant he'd worked with for years.

"Yeah, kinda." The three-day wait had passed, so last night she had another talk with the shady man, and walked away with mixed results.

For one, he said he had successfully extracted the energy harvested by the charm and conducted myriad tests, all with promising results. Actually, he had said 'we' throughout that part of the conversation, leaving her to infer that there were multiple hats in the operation, and she wondered just how many lab rats were scurrying under Hotland's streets.

The other thing was that, having exhausted all that energy on tests...

 _"Do you think you're able to bring back more?"_

 _"You... want me to do the job again? On the same mark?"_

 _"Are you capable? We'll need as much as that crystal can hold in order to proceed."_  
 _"Uh... yeah. Sure."_

She walked out of that alley annoyed (nothing new there, although she did get to call him a 'dry-cleaned prolapsed rectum' as a parting shot) and... deep under her skin, a little worried. Everything about this job made her uneasy, and the longer the shady man delayed, the more she wondered whether she was getting played for her time and resources.

And then there was dealing with Sans. Marks coming back to her for repeat business weren't unusual, but those types were predictable and easy to handle. She just wasn't comfortable chasing down a mark more than once, and that guy was... _weird_ —him and his brother both. When she was around them she got a strange feeling, like a worm wriggling in her gut that was so tiny and deep she couldn't scratch the itch. She hated not being able to qualify it.

"I have _rules_ , you know," she caught herself telling Grillby. "They keep my marks happy and me safe. It's good business, damnit."

She had a bunch of rules. She was never inclined to write them all down in any kind of order, and some days she wasn't even sure how many there were, since unique situations came up all the time that forced her to invent new ones. Some days she envied _actual prostitutes_. Sure, johns could be callous and violent and shitty, and treat hookers like objects, and never mind all the physical risk, parasites and disease, but on the intimate side it was a brutally honest profession—sex was the sole commodity.

Yet, exotic magic... blurred a lot of lines. It was the nature of the beast. If you spend enough time linked to another soul, doing intimate things in even the most detached way possible, there's a chance the mark will start getting funny ideas, because souls can be sticky and sentimental. It was a risk, and the trade-off for not engaging in the act in a more physical way. One of the best tricks to avoid it was to simply not have 'steady' marks at all, and keep moving along, but every once in a while she'd be stuck in a situation similar to this.

That's why she had the rules, to mitigate the damage. Some were odd and many were off-putting, but she knew most of them by heart, and they all amounted to a cardinal rule that was easy to remember—her 'rule number one':

 _Don't get attached._

Another sigh. "I just have to follow the rules and do the job, and it'll be fine. No mess, no fuss, no fuckin' problem." She rested her arms on the bar and twirled her crystal pendant between her fingers, studying the faint indigo staining her bright lavender charm. If the whole job weren't enough of a bother, she still had a damn riddle to solve: what kind of energy was this, and why was her client so particular about it?

"And another fucking thing! This-" Her head snapped up and she held the crystal pointedly in Grillby's direction. "This makes no goddamn sense. This is a shard from the _Crystal of Ji'la_. You know what that is? Of course you fuckin' don't, but let me tell you..." She trailed off before she started dumping a ton of magic theory on some hapless barkeep. Talking about how magic worked on her home-world wasn't doing any good here, but... if she learned more about the magic on _this_ world...?

"Actually, you know what? Tell me more about yourself. I'm genuinely curious."

His shoulders slid back and his spectacles slid down, appearing surprised. He then tipped an inquisitive look back to her. _'I'll tell you, if you tell me how we're having this conversation.'_

"Heh!" So, he had been curious about that, and merely waited for the right opportunity to press her for information. She liked this guy more by the minute. "I'm an _em-reader_. It's what my people back home call 'dumb telepathy.' I use it to talk outside my language, but it only works face-to-face. 's how I can understand you, as well as everybody else 'round here."

There was a lilt of alarm in his voice. _'So you read people's minds?'_

"No, that's a misconception. I can only read their _words_. Things you say come from a different part of the brain than things you're only thinking about. It's harder to reach that stuff, and I'm not that good anyway, and in some places it's kind of illegal, you know?"

He nodded, seeming to appreciate the explanation. _'Fair enough. What is it you'd like to know about me?'_

"Well the... fire thing... is kind of a huge tip-off. How is it you're made of magic? I mean, with humans..." She tapped the tips of her claws on the counter-top demonstratively. "Human bodies are made of matter, and then they have their _soul_ —it's heart-and-soul, one and the same—and then their _aura_ , a projection of the soul that connects it to the body. Soul and aura, those make the _spirit_ , so _spirit magic_ is anything to do with that. When the body dies, the soul absorbs the aura, and the whole spirit fucks away to... wherever souls go when they die." She offered the topic a blithe hand-wave. "There's a thousand religions on the subject, and I don't give a damn 'bout any of 'em." There was a school of thought from her world that said spirit energy all goes back into the planet, implying that planets have souls of their own, but it all made crystals and magic extremely complicated. She was no theologian.

Grillby spent a few seconds weighing his thoughts. _'I cannot tell you much about humans, except that their souls are more powerful than ours. They use magic in a different way.'_

"Right, humans can learn to _use_ material magic, which pulls from matter and the world around them, but they can't _be_ magic. It's not naturally a part of their spirit, and spirit magic is not _magic_ magic. Spirit magic can only interact with spirits. You feel what I'm saying? I get told that monsters here are made of magic, so that magic that's part of you, it's...?"

 _'Hmm, right. All monsters are born from the dust. Our magic gives the dust its shape and protects our souls. When we die, the magic fades away and we're dust again.'_

"Huh, so, your auras are straight-up made of material magic, which can take all kinds of shapes, depending on the element it's drawn from, so... fucking, fire. That's crazy. But, hey—why does monster dust take the shape it does? What makes one into, say, a talking bear, rather than a slime, or a plant with shark teeth, or a fancy-ass suit set on fire?"

 _'Well...'_ Grillby pushed up his glasses, mien turning pensive. _'It all depends. Our parents take a lot of care in our conception. Some use their own memories, and some use the dust of their ancestors, so generations live on much the same. Every rare once in a while...'_ He made a sweeping gesture to indicate himself. ' _Something new is born. That's the magic's power, and how unpredictable dust can be.'_

It explained the brittle quality and dull grey color of their spirits. Not only was magic in the mix—which she already knew, from asking around and reading Papyrus—but it replaced true spirit energy entirely. The thing about magic, though, was that as bright and powerful as it appeared, it didn't have the vibrant, virile flavor that spirit energy did. To have an aura composed of sheer magic was a radical notion—unless you're a golem (or an _elemental_ , which is really just a class of golem made more of magic than matter.) Her gaze lingered on her charm again. It was a great theory and all, and it explained every monster she met here...

...except for Sans. His reading didn't fit that profile. The magic on him was more like a shell, his aura hidden beneath—and there _was_ spirit energy, because it reacted to hers—so, why...?

She thought of the shady man, and the way he answered her questions. _('You said why. I don't want a monster.')_

"Huh. So..." she drawled, pieces of the puzzle slowly coalescing in her head. "If someone could... Why do you think anyone would make a monster that looks like a human skeleton?"

The flame atop Grillby's shoulders dimmed, taken aback. He lowered a look and a voice that suggested she was heading down a slippery path. _'I don't know.'_

 _I wish you did. It might answer the connection between those brothers and my client._ She pursed her lips, stymied for the moment, and drew into her thoughts, tapping the crystal charm idly against the bar. Worn against her breast since she was a child, the magic it absorbed and radiated was sometimes all she had to soothe her to sleep—even if it was only the warmth of her own aura.

She looked at it again, testing a breath of her magic, but it was muted by the residue of that strange, blue energy.

When she tried to ask the shady man what it was, he gabbed on and on about bliss, and rage, and sexual energy and how it has the power to draw things out—but the only things he was talking about were emotions. Emotions aren't magic, and they aren't even spirit energy. One can't have an aura made of _anger_ , it's stupid. Emotions are just symptoms of a spirit's condition—that's why you FEEL them rather than become them. You can't shove that shit in a bottle—'canned emotion' isn't a thing.

...But... what if it was? What if some smartass found out a way to...?

The crystal in her hand felt very cold.

"Holy shit," she breathed. "I think I just figured something out."

She needed to talk to—no, that wouldn't work. Sans was a prevaricating little shit, and probably wouldn't admit anything about it. She knew someone else who might, though.

"Hey." Her focus alighted on the barkeep. Grillby was emitting a wave of curious trepidation in her direction, but didn't ask until she spoke, first. "Where can I find Papyrus?"

 _'I'll admit I'm afraid to tell you. What are you scheming?'_

She bit down a saccharine grin. "Grillby, my new friend, 'scheming' is a really strong word. Can't I simply have a plan? That's a lot more innocent. Besides, it'll be more beneficial than you know, to everyone involved."

He cast an uncertain look around the bar before answering, _'Try the road south of town. He has that route set aside to work on puzzles.'_

"Puzzles? Like, dumbass word searches or what?"

 _'No, the kind meant to thwart invaders. It's part of our defense system. It's... questionably effective.'_

"Huh. Guess I better put on my damn thinking cap and go find him, then." She shuffled down from her bar stool and reached for her cloak.

Grillby tapped one finger on the bar, snagging her attention, and then leaned forward. The flames around his spectacles darkened gravely, and the dip in his tone was significant. _'If one of them gets hurt... and I find out it's because of you, you will not like what happens.'_

 _The only person getting hurt around here lately is me_ , she thought bitterly. However, there was no question whom was being discussed, and she wasn't looking to see what a fire elemental could do when outraged, so she carefully said, "Ah... noted," and left.


	13. Coldest of All

She thought she was watching a cartoon.

There was a snare trap on the ground, but there was nothing inconspicuous about it. The "rope" was made of dozens of bright handkerchiefs tied end-to-end, and it was placed cleanly on top of the snow, encircling a wedge of cheese. The other end was slackly tied to a nearby tree branch. To her right, a colorful mural had been painted on a slate rock wall, designed to look like another piece of cheese on a table. Just as she was wondering if she had stumbled into a kid's deserted birthday party, Papyrus strutted around the corner, paintbrush in hand.

"OH, IT'S MY FORTUNE-TELLING FRIEND! HELLO! YOU'VE CAUGHT ME AT MY MOST DASTARDLY, I'M AFRAID."

"Uh... I have?" Clowns were kind of scary, she supposed.

Papyrus tucked the paintbrush into his scarf, turned towards the ridiculous set-up and clasped his gloves together. "NYEH HEH HEH! IT'S NOT JUST A PUZZLE, IT'S A GRAND EXPERIMENT!"

He took several steps away and waved her closer. She tip-toed over the snow into whisper-shot and he leaned close, trying to sound conspiratorial but not lowering the volume an inch. "YOU SEE THAT HOLE IN THE ROCK, OVER THERE?"

She grimaced and massaged her ear. "Yeah?"

"A LITTLE MOUSE LIVES THERE. LITTLE DOES THE LITTLE MOUSE KNOW, I'M LURING IT INTO A TRAP. THAT CHEESE RIGHT THERE? IT'S FAKE! JUST A PLASTIC TOY. WHEN THE MOUSE GOES TO TAKE IT, IT WILL SEE THAT IT IS FAKE. THEN IT WILL SEE THAT IT'S IN A TRAP THAT IS ALSO FAKE. WHEN IT STARTS TO LEAVE, IT WILL SEE THAT PAINTING OF ANOTHER CHEESE, AND THEN WHEN IT GETS CLOSE IT WILL ALSO SEE THAT IT IS FAKE. IT'S A TRIPLE THREAT! ONE FALSEHOOD AFTER ANOTHER WILL LEAD THE MOUSE INTO AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS. AFTER THAT, IT WILL BE SO DEMORALIZED I WILL BE ABLE TO CAPTURE IT WITH EASE. IT WILL HAVE LOST THE WILL TO FIND CHEESE."

"That's..." _divinely idiotic._ "Cool? Why a mouse, though? You got something against it?" She doubted the 'invaders' Grillby mentioned weighed less than three ounces and were out to get everyone's provolone.

"NOT AT ALL. IT'S ONLY AN EXPERIMENT. I'LL LET THE MOUSE GO HOME AFTER, OF COURSE. SANS SAID THAT SCIENTISTS USE MICE IN THEIR EXPERIMENTS BEFORE TESTING THEM ON HUMANS, AND IT SOUNDED LIKE A GOOD IDEA TO ME, TOO. GENIUS, NO?"

"Genius is a word," she agreed drolly. "Uh, say, can I treat you to a cup of coffee or something? I'd like to sit and have a chat about some things."

Papyrus recoiled at the offer, pulling a face. "ICK, COFFEE. SUCH A DISGUSTING BEVERAGE. IT'S BAD FOR YOUR TEETH, YOU KNOW." His alacrity returned in a blink. "I WOULD LOVE A GLASS OF MILK, THOUGH. I KNOW JUST THE PLACE! MY EXPERIMENT NEEDS TIME TO _PERCOLATE_ , ANYWAY. NYEH HEH HEH!"

After receiving a hard stare, his shoulders sagged and he wrung his hands. "SORRY, MY BROTHER'S SENSE OF HUMOR IS RUBBING OFF ON ME AGAIN. LET'S JUST GO."

There was a cafe around the corner from Snowdin's inn where a family of rabbits served her and the skeleton pastries and drinks. She delighted in a hot tea and cinnamon bun as they sat around a quaint (and cold) patio table, while Papyrus insisted on a tall glass of milk—as well as on paying for them both.

He set down his half-emptied glass and daintily wiped his teeth on his scarf. "AH, THIS IS REFRESHING, ISN'T IT? I DIDN'T GET A CHANCE TO THANK YOU PROPERLY, YOU KNOW, FOR WORKING MY BROTHER'S POST. I MADE SURE HE KNEW IT, TOO."

His unabashed courtesy really made her uncomfortable. She rubbed her neck and tore off another sliver of cinnamon bun. "Uh, it was no problem. Forget about it."

"ABSOLUTELY NOT. IT'S IMPORTANT TO SHOW GRATITUDE, ESPECIALLY TO NEW FRIENDS. I TOLD SANS TO TELL YOU SO, AS WELL." A frown encroached on his cheerfulness. "AND I DEFINITELY TOLD HIM NOT TO WORRY ME LIKE THAT AGAIN. IF HE NEEDED A DAY OFF THAT BADLY, HE COULD'VE JUST ASKED." She watched the brotherly concern gradually replace with consternation. "ALTHOUGH I CAN'T SEE HOW. HE'S CONSTANTLY NAPPING ON THE JOB. MY BROTHER'S LAZINESS PUTS SLOTHS TO SHAME."

"He's a real card, that's for sure. Actually, can I ask you some things about your brother?"

Papyrus sat back in his chair with a long look of annoyance. "SIGH. WHAT HAS BIG BROTHER GOTTEN INTO THIS TIME?"

"Nothing reall—wait, BIGbrother? Sans is your older brother."

"OF COURSE. IS IT NOT OBVIOUS? HE'S THE ANNOYING, SMART-ALEC-Y ONE. OLDER BROTHERS ARE ALWAYS SO."

She struggled to pick her incredulous look off the table. "...Right. Naturally. I guess I figured wrong, since you're bigger and stronger and always mothering him and doing his chores."

"ALAS, I CAN'T HELP THAT I'M THE TALL, HANDSOME, RESPONSIBLE ONE. IF NOT FOR ME, OUR HOUSE WOULD FALL TO SHAMBLES, SURELY." His expression brightened again. "I WOULD NEVER SAY HE'S USELESS, THOUGH. MY BROTHER CARES A LOT, IN HIS OWN WAY. I STILL REMEMBER THE BEDTIME STORIES HE READ TO ME."

One of her eyebrows shot up. "Bedtime stories? Really?"

"OH YES, THEY'RE DELIGHTFUL. JUST LAST WEEK HE READ ME AN AMAZING ONE ABOUT A DAMSEL AND A DRAGON. IT WAS QUITE THE THRILLER! HARD TO FALL ASLEEP AFTER THAT, ACTUALLY. I DON'T THINK BEDTIME STORIES SHOULD BE TOO EXCITING. SEEMS TO DEFEAT THE PURPOSE, DOESN'T IT?"

And that eyebrow dropped back into deadpan. "Laaast week, right." She took another sip of tea and then tried a different approach. "Well, you both seem pretty happy with it all. Have you always lived together like this?"

"YES? THAT IS A THING BROTHERS DO, TOO. IT WOULD BE HARD TO BE A CONSTANT PAIN IN EACH OTHER'S NECKS IF WE DID NOT LIVE TOGETHER. I WOULD HAVE TO CALL HIM ON THE PHONE INSTEAD, BUT WE ONLY HAVE THE ONE. PERHAPS IF WE WROTE LETTERS? I'D HAVE TO INVEST IN MORE STATIONERY." He looked askance in the direction of their house. "...BUT NO, THAT WOULDN'T WORK. SANS NEVER CHECKS HIS MAIL."

"Your logic is sound, my friend. So... you've both always acted this way?"

A hand flew to his chest-plate with a short gasp. "WHO'S ACTING? I WAS NOT AWARE THAT WE ARE IN A PERFORMANCE."

"No, no one's acting, I mean-" She carefully phrased her next question. "Do you ever remember your brother behaving different or weird?" She shrugged. "Weirder than normal, I mean."

"HMM." He cupped his chin in his hand, considering it. "NO, SANS IS JUST SANS. AND I AM STILL THE GREAT PAPYRUS! THAT'S HOW IT'S BEEN SINCE THE START." Suddenly his face contorted with a blink, a twinge of something long forgotten stuck behind one eye. "ACTUALLY, WAIT. THERE WAS THIS TIME, ONCE. IT WAS A VERY LONG TIME AGO, I THINK...? WHEN WE FIRST CAME HERE, YES. I THINK THAT'S RIGHT."

She could practically see cogs turning behind his eye sockets, as if thinking that far back was a mental stretch. "You... wanna talk about it?"

"SURE. IT'S BEEN SO LONG, AFTER ALL. I DON'T THINK HE'D MIND IF I TOLD YOU." ...or he was deliberating whether he should. Papyrus started to talk into his glass of milk, his tone (amazingly) subdued. "SANS WAS ALWAYS BUSY THEN. HE SAID HE HAD A PROJECT. I NEVER EVEN SAW IT. HE SAID I WOULDN'T GET IT, SO I DIDN'T ASK. SOMETIMES I WOULDN'T SEE HIM FOR DAYS. IT WAS A VERY LONG PROJECT, I SUPPOSE—HE WAS AT IT FOR MONTHS. I THOUGHT IT WAS GOOD THAT HE HAD SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE TO WORK ON. ONE SHOULD ALWAYS BE WORKING TOWARDS A GOAL. THAT KIND OF RESOLVE IS GOOD FOR YOU. IT GIVES YOU CHARACTER!" He turned an optimistic look back up to her. "SO I THOUGHT IT WAS GOOD FOR HIM, YOU SEE, EVEN IF I DIDN'T SEE HIM VERY MUCH."

Everything about him sobered. "BUT... THEN HE STOPPED. IT WAS LIKE HE HAD GIVEN UP."

"Given up what?"

"EVERYTHING. HE WOULD JUST LAY ABOUT AND NOT DO ANYTHING. I SUPPOSE THAT'S NOT DIFFERENT FROM THE WAY HE ACTS NOW, BUT..." He seemed taxed for the right words. Eventually he settled on, "IT WAS DIFFERENT. I COULDN'T CONVINCE HIM TO DO ANYTHING, SO I LEFT HIM ALONE."

He paused and looked down again, one finger tapping the table. "ONE DAY SOME PEOPLE OUTSIDE FOUND HIM... _FALLEN DOWN_ IN THE SNOW." The finger slowed to a stop. She puzzled at the drawn-out inflection behind 'fallen down,' getting an idea of what he meant but wondering why those words in particular were significant.

"HE HADN'T BEEN EATING FOR DAYS, APPARENTLY. IMAGINE THAT—IT'S HARD TO, I KNOW. HIS MAGIC WAS ALL USED UP, AND HE WAS SO WEAK AND COLD I THOUGHT..." Another pause, and this time when he looked up, his expression was apologetic. "IT WAS MY FAULT. I SHOULDN'T HAVE IGNORED HIM FOR SO LONG LIKE THAT. HE WAS JUST SO STUBBORN, LIKE ALWAYS. I THOUGHT HE WASN'T GOING TO LISTEN TO ME, SO I... I DIDN'T BOTHER. BUT I SHOULD HAVE."

"...Oh." _He was really beat up about this. It explains a lot._ "Well, uh, don't blame yourself. Your brother's kind of an asshole. I doubt you'd have gotten through his thick head."

His worry-furrowed brow relaxed a pinch. "AH, WELL. IT'S IN THE PAST. I TOOK HIM HOME AND COOKED HIM SOUP AND MADE SURE HE GOT BETTER, AND WE BOTH PROMISED NEVER TO LEAVE EACH OTHER ALONE AGAIN. I EVEN CONVINCED HIM TO JOIN THE SENTRY SQUAD WITH ME. IT WAS GOOD FOR HIM TO GET A STEADY JOB, YOU KNOW." He pulled a face, hardly amused. "COME TO THINK OF IT, THAT'S WHEN HE STARTED MAKING THOSE TERRIBLE JOKES."

"Huh. And you say that all happened when you first got here? What were you both doing before that?"

He looked at her blankly. "BEFORE? BEFORE WHAT?"

She rolled her wrist, deliberately prompting him. "Before you lived here...? In this town?"

"OH. WELL?" He scratched his head, apparently stumped. "I DON'T KNOW."

"You _don't remember?_ Seriously?"

"NO—I MEAN YES. I MEAN NO." The lack of memory visibly troubled him. "I... DON'T KNOW? NOBODY EVER ASKED, I DON'T THINK. IT MUST NOT BE IMPORTANT. IS THAT STRANGE? I THINK IT IS."

"Yes," she said flatly and firmly. "Yes it is." She gathered her cloak and stood up, leaving a coin on the table for a tip. "Thanks for the talk, though. I think I got what I need to know."

The only thing left to do was probably the hardest part: confirm her theory from the source.

A stint of chilly weather followed her out of Snowdin, a rare subterranean draft beating into her cloak and licking the tops of snowdrifts as she headed towards the woods. It wasn't harsh enough to make a blizzard, but just enough to coax residents back into their houses. Even when she happened onto Sans's sentry booth, she found it unoccupied. She considered tracing her steps all the way back to Waterfall, to see if he had set up shop there, but the fresh footprints meandering into the thick of the woods gave another lead.

The forest paths were especially dark as the afternoon was wearing down, but thankfully the heavy wood broke the wind and let her relax the grip on her cloak. At one fork in the trail she encountered a monster with a long, serpentine shape and a griffon's facade. It shook its great, feathery mane and snorted threateningly through its beak, but when she unfurled her wings and hissed it bounded away, no longer interested in a fight. It's lithe, retreating form through the snow was strangely beautiful. _Looked like a drake. Maybe kin of mine, hah._

She found her mark seated on a rock overlooking a shallow creek. His back was turned, his arms were folded into the pockets of his thick jacket and his gaze was far away ahead of her, unmoved by her approach. He reminded her of only a few days ago in these same woods, dozing in a waking dream.

Her toes sank into a patch of snow with a thick crunch, the sound enough to break his hollow trance. He passed the slightest peripheral look behind his shoulder and waited for her to say something, first. The winter trees seemed to crowd around them, swallowing all ambient noise and instilling the illusion of privacy.

"You know..." After breaking the silence, the words came easier. "I figure there's only two kinds of people that wear a smile all the goddamn time."

She walked to the bank of the creek and stood off to his side. He looked small, but the fixed grin he turned up to her was as big as it ever was—and, as ever, it said absolutely nothing.

"One's completely psychotic." She sat down next to him. "The other's just a liar."

"well," Sans decided to say after a moment, "i am a skeleton. can't frown with no lips, so i have to lie through my teeth. get it?"

She rolled her eyes. At least his mood was affable enough to crack jokes. "You never stop with those lame-ass lines, do you? No wonder you've got a permanent shit-eating grin."

"heh," he coughed, almost humored by that. "you look like you came to tell me something."

She reached into her cloak, pulled off her necklace, held the pendant in her lap and turned it over, watching the faint pulses of blue under the reflected light. " _The most powerful emotion is the coldest of all and weakest of all_ ," she recited.

As she hiked into the woods and contemplated all that had happened, she deduced that without a flesh-and-blood body, the physical release of their sexual encounter translated to an emotional one. It made an outlandish kind of sense, provided her theory was correct. That her charm was even able to retain _emotional energy_ was a miracle in itself (the concept was still blowing her mind), but that was probably what the shady man was talking about all along—that _something primal_ that draws and holds the deepest feelings.

There was a perplexed twist to his brow as he waited for her to elaborate. "I fucking hate riddles. Not my thing, so I really had to think about it. Then I realized 'power' and 'strength' weren't necessarily the same thing. A strong emotion can do a lot of damage in a short amount of time, but it always fizzles out if you give it too long. Real rage, pure joy—that shit just doesn't stick around, and good thing, or we'd all be burnt-out sociopaths. But, the one with more power has a longer effect. It's a slower, quiet burn, and at the end of the day that's the kind that goes deeper."

He leaned away an inch, gauging her with a wary look. "sounds like you got something figured out, huh?"

She held out her necklace for him to study. He stared at that crystal pendant—the one infused with _his_ emotion, and he had to know it—and then just looked down and shrugged.

"I mean, I think I get it: all those stupid-ass jokes, and the way you act like it all doesn't matter. But it must, or you wouldn't be trying to hide it, would you?"

He rolled his shoulders and held his words. He was looking pretty uncomfortable again.

"I saw you out here in the woods that day. I know what depression looks like. The only thing I don't get is why." She really wanted to ask about that 'project' he had so long ago, but it felt like selling out Papyrus a little too hard. Despite the younger brother's reassurance, it didn't seem like something she ought to know just yet.

Sans studied the opposite bank for a long minute, head rolling to one side and then the other as the beady lights of his eyes picked up a pile of scattered thoughts. One of his hands withdrew from his jacket, poised as if to make a statement, but then returned to his pocket.

At length, he turned half-way in her direction and said, "my brother's a tough cookie, but he's still a pretty sensitive guy, you know? if he sees..." He hesitated, and then his hand reappeared to pull his jacket up around his neck. Now in a deeper slouch, he looked like a grim turtle. "well, i don't want to see him hurt, either. he's really lucky, though. he doesn't remember."

"Remember what?"

He stopped fidgeting, but still didn't say anything for a long time. When his voice came back, it felt like it was bringing nightfall with it. "that person who hired you... he's really dangerous. i wouldn't be dealing with him, if i were you."

 _He knew._ She couldn't even call up a swear for that. "...Huh. Did you know who I was working for all along?"

He shifted, the grin turning cheeky. "should i say a little bird told me, or that i just guessed?"

"You'd be a good goddamn guesser," she said sourly, resigned to not getting his source. A suspicious phone call stuck out in her mind, though. "And I don't think I have a choice. I can't just stick around here and do nothing. He says he can get me out of here."

"yeah... he says things like that." She didn't know what that meant, but something in his tone told her it was a voice of experience.

She huffed, flustered by getting called out on her client. How long had Sans been suspicious? Did that mean he actually knew what that shady asshole wanted out of all of this? Was he angry about it? Confused? _Amused?_ Reading his face provided no clues.

"God damn... You guessed a while ago, didn't you? That I'm not really a succubus? That I pitched you a load of bullshit?"

"heh... maybe." Oh, good—he was only going to use the opportunity to _fucking taunt her_.

"So, why did you buy it?"

"just curious."

"Great. I'm happy to be a motherfucking curiosity."

"and, y'know," Sans continued, "i had to see if you were cool. people don't come from the outside every day, and when they do, it's usually bad news. i wanted to make sure you weren't a threat to pap, or anybody in town."

She frowned wryly. "Aren't you a trusting little fellow? So, what's the verdict?"

He winked. "jury's still out. i guess i'll have to keep an eye on you until i'm sure."

She couldn't tell whether he was threatening her or _flirting_ with her—or maybe it was another joke she didn't get. She was disquieted either way, which was probably the goal.

"Well, shit..." She folded her arms into a vexed hunch. "I could've hurt YOU, y'know, if that was my intention. Your stupid paranoia account for that?"

He shrugged again. Either he thought he could handle it, or he didn't care.

"You're somethin' else, you know that?"

He pitched her a level look. "that just makes us both liars, doesn't it? if you're not a real succubus, then what kind of monster are you?"

"Ah, well..." Now that she was cornered, she supposed she owed him more than the half-honest answers she'd given thus far. "To tell the truth, I'm a half-breed. They're pretty common where I'm from. We're bred on purpose, actually, to be soldiers and servants. My mother was a human, but I never met her. I only knew my brood-mates and instructors."

"you're half-human, then."

"Yep." He didn't seem too curious about the other half, but in a world full of monsters that shouldn't surprise her. She was used to walking around human worlds and getting grilled over her dragon lineage, so this was a weirdly nice change of pace.

"that's kind of a big deal around here, if you hadn't noticed. i probably wouldn't advertise it, if i were you."

She scoffed. "Thanks for the tip."

An awkward quiet settled in. _Well, what now? Shouldn't he be pissed off or something? ...Shouldn't I be pissed, too?_ She couldn't feel a strong emotion right now if she tried. It was rather as if the indigo spell that had taken her charm were infectious. She stared at a tiny whirlpool spawning at the edge of the creek. The water was pine-black and smelled like rotting leaves. From the corner of her eye she watched Sans pick up a fresh twig and play with it, the coniferous green tip making a crude fan.

"so..." he started to quietly say, and then turned his smile up to her, waving the twig. "did you get the answers you were _pining_ for?"

The angry look she tried to pull fell flat. "You're un-fucking-believable." She looked at her charm again and sighed. "And not really." Solving that one riddle wasn't as rewarding as she thought it might be, and it really didn't seem to bring her any closer to cracking the mystery around the shady man and how he was going to help her escape this world.

Apropos of nothing, she still had a job to do. And sometimes—especially if it's already the second time—the best way to go is to be direct.

She secured her necklace, grunted and stretched her back, satisfied with the faint _pops_ around the base of her wings and tail. "Well, this heart-to-heart has been fun and all, but you want to go back to your room and fuck around?"

Sans shot her a wide-eyed look. After a couple of blinks it relaxed into a mean smile. "heh, you've got some nerve. i should say no. god only knows what's being done with that." He nodded at the charm.

She pinched the crystal pendant thoughtfully. "It's my ticket out of here, so technically, you'd still be helping me—if you're really the charitable type."

He rested his chin in his hand and treated her to a leery squint. "and supposing i'm not?"

She appealed to his paranoia, instead. "Then it's all the more reason to help. The sooner it's done, the sooner I'm gone, and you can rest easy knowing I'm out of everyone's hair."

One brow quirked and tugged the corner of his smile, his visage setting deep in diversion. "i don't have hair, you know."

She sat back on her hands and drew her legs and tail into a beguiling curve. The grin she cracked was distinctly snake-like. "I can't help but notice that you're NOT saying no."


	14. Movie Night

He didn't say no, but he did have some conditions, and one of those was that he wouldn't do anything on an empty stomach. Sans told her to meet him at Grillby's that night, and she left him alone to finish his sentry shift.

By the time she walked back into Snowdin, the oppressive wind had died down somewhat. She watched a brown bear in a yellow raincoat pace along the sidewalk, a snow hare wearing a hard hat riding his shoulders. The pair stopped to light each street lamp along the main avenue, and each offered her a friendly wave as she passed.

She ducked out of the chill and into Grillby's, discovering a familiar crowd around the bar.

"Whore! Get over here; your tab's already started."

She loosed an aggravated growl, and made sure Malk heard it all the way to the counter. The redbird clicked his tongue against his beak in laughter as he leaned away from her glare. "Eheheh, don't look at me!" He swung a wing over her head to point at the skeleton seated at the other end of the bar. "It's all on your good buddy, there."

When she spun around, Sans met her with an expectant grin. Of course, he had beaten her here—he probably used a damn 'shortcut.' Seated next to him was Rudy the hamster, and she found an empty chair on his other side. "You rat bastards," she greeted them both.

"fancy seeing you here, huh?" Sans asked, making their planned encounter sound as natural as a coincidence. "We're waiting on Grillby to bring out the goods," Rudy supplied.

"These goods better not cost me an arm and a leg," she berated them.

Sans treated her to a carefree smile and seemed to point behind her. "don't worry, we won't _break_ the bank. we'd hate for you to _wing_ it and write grillby a _hot_ check."

Her scowl drew long as she followed his pointing to the bandage jutting from her shoulder. _Did he just drag the wing that HE broke into a shitty string of puns?_ Rudy's snickering only heightened her ire, and she slapped the counter in front of the hamster. "Don't encourage him! He's fucking terrible."

"That's what I keep saying," Malk chipped in from his corner. "Does anybody listen? Noooooo, it's just B-list stand-up comedy all night long, over here. If it didn't make my ears bleed, we might actually turn a check from it, get some real patrons."

Rudy waved down Malk's whinging. "You ain't got no ears, so I don't want to hear it."

"Exactly, pal," Malk snapped back. "They're gone forever, committed suicide rather than rot off my head from listening to lousy jokes." Malk wriggled into a taller slouch as he remembered something to talk about. "Speaking of loss of life and limb, lemme tell ya about my dumbass nephew today."

Before he could start a narrative, the succubus felt a swatch of fur brush against her back, heard a deep and quiet, "Excuse me, lady," and Rez the wolf sidled onto the next available bar stool. "Hi there, fellas. Grillby out back?"

Malk spun a look into the kitchen. "Eh, probably chiseling the black parts off his latest masterpiece."

At this, Grillby turned the corner, bringing plates of grilled onions over to Rudy and Sans and managing to look affronted despite the lack of face. Malk stiffly shrugged. "I was just sayin'! You ain't cleaned the back-burners yet, have you?"

 _'It's been a busy afternoon, thanks to the weather. No need to remind me.'_ He then gave Rez and the succubus a courteous nod and returned to his work. Malk's retort chased him into the kitchen. "Well go do it now, then, and stop being a whine-o about it. Sheesh."

 _'I'm not finished yet, and the only one whining is you.'_ Grillby reappeared with two more plates of something crispy and bright orange, which he set down in front of Rez and the succubus. The wolf looked pleasantly surprised. "Aw shucks, thank you Grillbz. You know just how to treat a hungry wolf."

Malk sniggered. "Whore's treating, apparently." She screwed up a look of outrage and passed it from the redbird to Sans, but between the two they only looked dreadfully amused. "i told you guys she's cool," Sans added, cementing her purse's fate.

Rez was obliviously grateful. "Well thank you kindly, lady." His long snout buried into the pile of fried food and tore away pieces with big, sloppy gulps.

"Ugh," was all she could say, suddenly too tired and hungry to raise a stink over it. She nibbled off her own plate of chow and listened to the resuming bar chatter, enjoying the odd sensation of warm food clashing with the cold crystal near her breast.

 _'Go on and tell them about your nephew,'_ Grillby prompted the redbird.

"Oh, right," Malk recalled. "You're not gonna believe this shit. I brought my nephew out to the shop today. His second cousin's in town from the mill, and he brought in a coupl'a brand new machetes—I'm talkin' nice ones, real oak handles and good Hotland steel. They're not even cheap."

Something broke up her em-reading for a moment—it was mentally akin to radio interference. She shook her head to clear it and focused on Malk.

"So I says to the boys, take those machetes, get your asses up in our new plot, and start choppin' the branches off those trees, get 'em ready for the saws."

It happened again—a burst of static that nearly sounded like another string of thought. She doubled her effort to listen, squinting in concentration.

"So next chance I get back to the office, I find out they been playin' swords with the damn things like a coupla preschoolers."

Again, and this time she was able to parse a few words, playing back-and-forth:

 _'don't...i...handle...'_

"You tan their hides?" Rudy asked.

 _'...sure?...We...help.'_

 _'yeah...fine...up...don't worry...her.'_

"They did it themselves—here's the best part," Malk said. "I hear it all after the fact, right? Biddy's got his arm wrapped up like he's trying out a mummy costume. I have to get Chuckie to stop cryin' big guilty crocodile tears long enough to tell me what happened."

 _'...not...her...about you...know...dangerous.'_

"So they were out by the dumpster behind the office, just tearing up garbage, and Biddy grabs one'a those big old poster calendars from last year, holds it up." Malk sat up straight and mimicked holding a large sheet in front of his body. "'Hey Chuckie,' he says, 'Stab through this calendar.'"

 _'...cool...i'll...like...said...thanks...our back...'_

"And Chuckie, god bless the kid, says, 'No way! I'll stab right through you.' Obviously, right? So, this genius, he just does this..."

 _'...time.'_

Malk pulled the imaginary poster-board away from his torso and stretched it across one forearm, instead. "'How about this?' he says. And Chuckie's like, cool, sure, like that's any better, and _stabs Biddy right through the elbow_."

Rudy and Rez's jaws dropped and Sans blinked, looking appropriately alarmed. "Good lord, Malk, is he okay?" Rez asked.

Malk gave an offhanded shrug. "Shit, he'll live. I got it all looked it by a nurse, no problem. Helluva scare, though, and I was fuckin' _lit_. If Biddy's wing weren't nearly chopped off, I'da wrung both their necks, but looks like they've suffered enough. Kids, I tell ya."

Rez went on to question Malk about the quality of the machete steel and whether it would work as well for chopping ice as it did for chopping wood, Rudy joked that it's at least as good at chopping off body parts, and the succubus started to tune them all out, getting full on the fried grub and finding it hard to focus her em-reading for some reason.

Either the long day at the end of a long week or the cheap food was wearing on her mental faculties, she supposed, but she couldn't shake the notion that it sounded like Grillby, of all people... talking to someone else, over her head. It gave her the creeping memory of being teased by full-breeds back in her youth, their telepathic taunts deaf to her ears.

After their plates were cleaned and she was nearly dozing, Sans made an excuse that sounded like 'catch our show' and grabbed her attention, nodding towards the exit. She made sure Grillby got his coins and then followed the skeleton out. There was just enough walking distance between the pub and his house to accost him.

"That is the last time you're getting me to pay a tab, you know. I'm not made of fuckin' money." Her purse was starting to feel light, which was distressing. She didn't want to have to pick up extra marks to make up for the length of her stay in this hell-hole (and knowing what she does about monster souls, she's not even sure she can find another good mark.)

Sans didn't let her interrupt his easy swagger, and her strides had to catch up and then slow down to fall next to his. "heh heh, don't sweat it. you won't go hungry while you're here."

"The hell's that supposed to mean?"

He only hummed and changed the subject. 'what should i call you, now?'

"What?"

"well, you're not a real succubus, right? so what do we call you?"

"Ah, well..." She didn't have a contingency plan that required giving out a name, and she wasn't planning on sticking around long enough to bother with one. All she had were her _rules_ , and those told her to say, "I don't care."

"heh, you sure? i could always go with what the guys are grillby's are calling ya."

"If by 'guys' you mean a windy asshole named Malk, I'd massively appreciate if you didn't. Just keep calling me Succubus, I guess. It's an alias I've used before." It was true, if 'alias' was another word for something slurred at her by a superstitious mob wielding torches and pitchforks. Go figure that every race she'd ever met that didn't understand magic liked to chalk it up to witchcraft and devilry.

"succubus it is, then," he said agreeably, and then let her into his house.

Papyrus met them in the living room. "GOOD, I WAS JUST GOING TO GET YOU. IT'S ALMOST STARTING!" The slits of his eye sockets honed in on her, and he beamed. "FORTUNE TELLER, ARE YOU OUR GUEST AGAIN?" He gestured to the TV with a flourish. "YOU'RE IN LUCK, BECAUSE IT'S MOVIE NIGHT."

She sought out Sans for an explanation. The short skeleton pulled an expression that would have looked tongue-in-cheek, if he had either. "yeah, we watch movies at home now. checked out a theatre once, but it looked real sketchy. i think the whole thing was _staged_."

He was rewarded with her flat stare and a long-suffering sigh from Papyrus. "WE HAVEN'T EVEN STARTED YET." Papyrus took a step towards a table and then stopped, hands held up short. "OH DEAR, WE MIGHT NOT START AT ALL. I CAN'T FIND THE CLICKER. SANS, HELP."

Papyrus drifted around the room, digging behind the television set and the back of the couch, while Sans 'helped' by rooting his feet to the spot and offering colored commentary. "maybe it got stage fright. couldn't keep its _act_ together."

"I MEAN IT, THE REMOTE'S NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. THIS IS NO TIME FOR JOKES!"

"you're right. it's not even _remotely_ funny."

"UGH."

Sans flopped backwards onto the end of the couch (as if that vantage-point would serve the search even better) and then sat up straight with a start. "oh." He stuck a hand between the cushions and fished out the TV remote. "found it, heh."

"BRILLIANT! I'LL GET THE POPCORN, AND YOU TWO SAVE ME A SPOT." Papyrus bounced into the kitchen and Sans nestled firmly into his corner of the sofa. He nodded at her and patted the space in the middle. "pap likes the other armrest. you can sit here."

She stuck her hands on her hips. "I'm seriously going to sit around and watch moving pictures with you lugs?"

"gotta catch our shows before bed. might as well get cozy while you're waiting, right?"

She rolled her eyes, sat down with a heavy huff, and tried to draw her wings into a position that didn't put awkward pressure on the bandage. She was roughly comfortable by the time Papyrus arrived with a bowl full of salt-and-pepper puffs. "LOOK, THEY'RE FIFTY PERCENT WHITE THIS TIME," he said with more pride than she'd give him credit.

"cool, bro. you're gettin' better at it." As Sans took a handful of the ashen popcorn and stuffed it in his mouth, she wondered how anyone could say that with a straight face (technically, Sans could say nothing with a straight face, but the sincerity was a little jarring.)

The remote clicked, the lights were switched off, and the three settled in for a show that appeared to be about... some dog, and a human family. She had a technical problem with it, not unlike her problem with the echo flowers: she couldn't em-read a recording. The images played perfectly clear on the screen to a backdrop of gibberish. The brothers seemed very intent on it, at any rate, and once her eyes glazed over the wholesome broadcast about a loyal family canine, she started watching them, instead.

Although washed in the television's cool black-and-white and seated in stark black shadows, Papyrus was a weird ray of warmth. She'd noticed that about him—something about his aura that, even though it had the same bland color of every other monster, lit his surroundings like morning sun on frost. It repelled negativity (including all her insults and sarcasm), spiced his every movement with childlike excitement, and made something as mundane as watching television look like a thrill ride (he was presently sitting on the edge of his seat and holding his chin with both hands, rapt over whether Laddie the dog was going to catch up to his family on horseback.) Even his _scent_ was bizarrely uplifting—something citrus and something like a happy fireplace, mixed with the odor of someone who used too much soap in their laundry. It made her nose itch and her mind stir in unfamiliar directions.

 _Who can be that fucking positive all the time?_ It was an alien way of thought to her. The irony didn't escape her, though—that the face of such electric optimism was locked in a skeletal grimace, making Papyrus look like someone who couldn't decide if they needed a toilet.

Meanwhile, his brother was infinitely smiling, yet... Her fingers curled around her pendant, tracing the cold edges. It was funny, and it wasn't.

From her other side, Sans made a muffled grunt. She glanced over and caught him squirming deeper into the couch, one hand clutching his stomach. The finger-bones flexed and tangled in his shirt as he hissed and shut his eyes.

Papyrus worriedly asked, "SANS? IS IT ANOTHER TUMMY-ACHE?"

"...ah? i'll be fine, bro."

"YOU GET THOSE ALL THE TIME. IT'S YOUR TERRIBLE DIET, YOU KNOW. I TELL YOU NOT TO EAT OUT AT THAT GREASY PUB SO MUCH."

 _Yeah, nothing to do with the bowl of charcoal you just served_ , she thought.

"eheh, it's no problem," Sans started to laugh it off. "i can eat he-IC!" A hiccup derailed his sentence. "...anything." His boast was deflated by another wince. "just... takes a few to digest it."

"I thought digesting food was for chumps," she ribbed him.

He blinked, recalling their conversation in the hotel lounge, and returned a mixed smile. Her em-reading buzzed like something half-said, startling her—now it was happening outside of Grillby's, too?

"AH, LADDIE IS OVER," Papyrus announced, looking back at the TV. "I'LL GET A TAPE!" He moved to a shelf under the set and rifled through a book-like array of hard plastic cassettes.

"put on the godmother."

"NO WAY, IT'S SCARY."

"she hasn't seen it, though."

"HAVE YOU SEEN IT, FORTUNE TELLER?"

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," she said.

"see?"

"YOU JUST WANT TO SEE MY BONES GET RATTLED. IF I WATCH THAT, YOU'LL HAVE TO READ TO ME AGAIN, AND I'LL MAKE SURE TO WAKE YOU UP EXTRA EARLY TOMORROW."

"okay, okay, i was just joshin' ya. you want to put on the one with the orange cat?"

"OH! NOW, SEE, THAT IS A MOVIE IN GOOD TASTE. HAVE YOU SEEN IT, FORTUNE TELLER?"

"Still no idea what the ever-living goddamn titty-fuck you're on about," she casually swore.

Papyrus—finally—looked struck by something she said. "SUCH LANGUAGE. DO YOU KISS YOUR MOTHER WITH THAT MOUTH?"

She smiled thinly, fighting to restrain laughter. "My father was a 4,000-pound dragon. The moment after I was born, he devoured my mother."

It couldn't have been possible for Sans to lean farther away from her on the couch, but he managed. The wide, wary silence the brothers shared ( _oh god the looks on their stupid faces_ ) was enough to crack her grip on her sanity. She threw her head back and crowed, "Haaaaaaaaaah hah, I'm fucking with you. It wasn't that bad. They ritually slit her throat, first. Giving her to him alive would've just been barbaric."

"W-WELL THEN," Papyrus stammered, at a loss.

"...explains a lot," Sans muttered.

"QUITE." Papyrus diverted his attention to the tape in his hand, sticking it into a playback device next to the TV. "LET'S WATCH SOMETHING NICE, NOW."

Unlike the dog show, the movie had some color to it, which made something better to stare at while she was busy not understanding a single line of dialogue. There was a cat, and some talking mice, and another family of doting homo-sapiens.

"You guys watch a lot of shows about humans?" she wondered aloud.

"ABSOLUTELY. THEY'RE MUCH BETTER-PRODUCED THAN MONSTER SHOWS."

"a lot of their vhs tapes wash down here, and monsters restore them and sell 'em out."

"Neat, I guess. You don't hate it, though? Aren't humans supposed to be the enemy?"

"OF COURSE THEY ARE. IT'S THE ROYAL DECREE. OH, IF I COULD CAPTURE EVEN ONE WHOLE HUMAN..." Papyrus began lamenting out loud. "I'D BE A RINGER FOR THE ROYAL GUARD FOR SURE. THE KING WOULD HEAP PRAISE UPON ME, AND I'D BE A HERO OF THE UNDERGROUND! I WOULD MAKE SO MANY FRIENDS, I WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO COUNT THEM!"

Sans sniggered and turned an arch look up to her. "what about half a human?"

Her shoulders tightened. She was going to fucking throttle him.

The hint sailed high over Papyrus's head, though. "SANS, HOW MORBID," he chided. "WELL, WAIT—WHICH HALF? I MEAN, CUTTING A PERSON IN HALF WOULD BE DEPLORABLE, BUT IF THEY CAME PRE-PACKAGED THAT WAY, I SUPPOSE IT'S OKAY...? ONLY THE HALF WITH THE SOUL WOULD SUFFICE, THOUGH. WHERE DO HUMANS STORE THEIR SOULS, ANYWAY?"

Sans knocked lightly on his chest. "right by the heart."

"FASCINATING. THE KING COULD—OH, IT'S THE SCENE WHERE HE FALLS IN THE RIVER!" Papyrus snapped a look back from the TV to the succubus and scratched a cheek-bone apologetically. "OH, SPOILERS. SORRY."

"No problem," she assured, as if she had any shits to give about a cat drowning on TV. She was rather disquieted by their king's hunt for human _souls_.

The movie finally closed with a lot of cheery mewing and barking puppies, leaving Papyrus tremendously satisfied and Sans merrily asleep. His brother nudged him awake with a thick boot. "YOU MISSED THE FINALE AGAIN, SLEEPYBONES."

"hwaa...?" Sans yawned and slid slug-like off the couch, hitting the carpet with a _thump_. He looked around, noticed the company and jerked upright. "oh. heh. my bad again, huh? that movie always makes me wanna take a-"

Papyrus clapped his hands over his head like earmuffs. "OH GOD, DON'T SAY IT AGAIN."

"... _cat_ -nap."

"NYEEEEEH," Papyrus made a plaintive noise and stormed up the stairs. "THAT'S IT, I'M GOING TO BED."

Sans rolled to his feet, moved to the foot of the stairs and held up his arms. "hey, pap, wait."

Papyrus stopped, regarded San with a wavering frown, lost his annoyed composure and went back down the steps. The taller skeleton got down on one knee and wrapped him in a squeeze, punctuating the hug with a soft, "Nyeh."

"g'night, bro. sweet dreams, huh?"

"GOOD NIGHT, BROTHER. SLEEP WELL!" Up into his room he went. "oh, I will," Sans remarked after him, casting a sidelong glance at the succubus. "let's go, eh?"

"Finally," she groused as she peeled herself off the couch and followed Sans into his room. He turned on the lousy flash-lamp and kicked off his slippers by the wall while she sized up her mark—but then, she was distracted by a quaint little trash-nado in the corner.

"You brought it back, huh?"

"yep. gonna take a while to get it up to full size again, but it's a work-in-progress." He cocked another wide grin. "making messes is one of my hobbies."

"Tch, your whole life is a mess." She closed the door behind her and locked it. "You ready?"

Sans passed an uncertain look from the door, to the corner, to her, and then shrugged.

"Good." She raised one foot, planted it squarely on his chest and kicked him backwards onto the mattress. He bounced once with a short squeak and then lay in a heap of surprise as she jumped onto his lap, anchoring him to the spot. "Because I've been waiting all night to do this job while you were pussy-footing around with your friends and your dumb movie night."

"eheh, patience is a virtue?" he hedged, but she wouldn't hear it. She was already reaching behind her neck to unfasten the cord to her charm and twining her tail around his leg, feeling up his magic skin and getting ready to forge another link. Even without that, she could sense that he was already much more... relaxed than last time, his breathing even and his expression clear and quiet as he watched her work. He must have loosened up to the whole process now that he knew it was harmless from experience. Of course, if he had taken her word for it he would have known that the first time, but then she wouldn't trust someone she first met sneaking into her bedroom, either.

He seemed to magically pick up her train of thought by following her short glance to the window. "that first night you were here was a doozy, huh? i thought that was a dream, at first. but when i woke up and saw the window open, i put it together. i guess i gave you quite a knock, didn't i?"

She snorted at the memory. "No shit. Are all of your dreams that violent?"

For such a frivolous question he shot her a pretty feral look, em-static buzzing for two seconds before his demeanor eased back into his usual coolness. "nah... you'd like my dreams. they're very hands-off."

"Oh really?" She wasn't sure where he was going with that. Was it supposed to be a...?

"yeah, but if something rubs me the wrong way, all that goes right out the window."

...joke. "Ugh. That's it. That's your ONE. I'm allowing you ONE JOKE for this session, and that was it. I'm making a new rule, right now, just for you. I hope you're happy."

She felt him shake beneath her with subdued laughter, indicating he was, and she rolled her eyes again. She got her charm loose and leaned over to tie it around his neck. His jacket smelled like fried chips and old ketchup ( _nothing shocking there_ ), but beneath that his scent was just... nothing, gray. His skin was as invisible to the nose as it was to the eyes.

"It feels weird to say this," she mused as she worked the cord into a knot, "but you're not even the grossest mark I've ever had."

The skeleton accepted the back-handed compliment rather graciously. "uh... thanks?"

"Yeah, I mean, all considered, you're pretty..." ' _Clean' is not the right word..._ "...sterile." She snickered at her past self. "One time, I had to mark this... uh... it was a nasty, fat worm-thing. I think they called themselves Carpas. The one I marked was coming out of adolescence, so it just sweated and make slurping noises through its nose, like, constantly. Don't even get me started on the fluids that came out when it... well, you know. Thank shit I didn't have to touch it, but there was some splash damage, if you know what I mean. It was the most disgusting thing with no legs I'd ever seen. His father paid me to do it. He was a wealthy guy, and too snobby to just buy a hooker from his own kind like any regular father would for his kid's birthday, or whatever fucking 'rite of passage' that was supposed to be."

His brows had climbed to the top of his head, but he simply blinked, no words coming to mind for any of that. She patted the crystal resting on his shirt and threw her head back with a lewd laugh, hips pressing heavily against his. "Gwah, hah. That really sets the mood, doesn't it? You know, our last time went all right and all, but it was pretty sloppy." She brushed her hair behind her shoulders, cracked her knuckles in her palms and then declared with full menace, "I can do better."

Sans threw back a look of _concern_ that was delicious to her. She spared him any more squicky chit-chat and got down to work.

 _Magic over spirit, over mind, over matter, over magic..._ Her shade was familiar to this route now, and in three breaths that knotted thread of blue along his spine was in her grasp. It thrashed like a fish on a line, its nervous pulse tightening every false muscle and screwing shut his eye sockets (that _never_ stopped looking weird to her.)

The link snapped into place with a flash of black light behind her eyes, the breaths were now his— _one, two, three_ —and on the third her shade's fingers interlocked with something _deep_. When she pulled, it quivered, and her mark's bones shook with a short moan.

 _Hah, he's slipping up_ , she thought with relish. "mmnh not," he uttered between gasps, and her mind reeled back. _Oh, shit._ She had to watch out for that; some marks could read her thoughts during a link. In her moment of shock she looked out, and saw one of Sans's eyes cracked open in a smirk. She hoped he heard her thinking, _Smartass_.

His grin only broadened, but shrank into place when she gave another sharp tug on his aura's thread. His spasm made the whole mattress jump and fed a pulse of heat into her end of the thread—she found his sweet spot. She massaged the loop into a gentle rhythm, in-and-out-again, each pass reaching slower, deeper, _harder_ —scooping up as much spiritual friction as possible.

It was like a roller-coaster: the high-strung anticipation at the top of the loop, the splash of vertigo from going over the edge, that falling sensation that flips the stomach and cages the air in one's throat, the sweeping motion that tears that breath away, and then a moment's respite as it all climbs back to its peak.

She felt him squirm and heave for air, false skin flushed with unnatural warmth, and just to sweeten the pot she slid her fingers under his shirt and rubbed his soft side, lending something tactile to his overloaded senses. _Huh, he's not even that fat, just has a cute little belly going on, here—fucking god, did I say CUTE? Nothing is cute, here. He can hear this, too. Shit, focus._ Her mind clammed up.

If he did hear that, he was too distracted to say. He nearly kicked her, but the blind knee-jerk only caught air. "oh—ah—ahh...!" That physical touch was a little too much, and a sign that she was going in the right direction. She steadied one hand over the charm, cementing her flow of magic, and played with the other, teasing his skin right behind her shade. It roiled his aura and made his bones leap in panic, uncertain how to cope with her stray hand.

She only pinned him to the bed with her weight and kept going. There was a fierce, bird-like flutter under his ribs that she couldn't tell apart from a real heartbeat, and their threads grew brightly hot. She swiped his thread through her own aura's sweet spot for good measure and felt his body double over in response, the long, slightly blasphemous sound he produced music to her ears. "ahhhhhhh g-g-god damn... i can't... i can't even... oh, please."

"Don't you even beg to stop, now," she rasped, breath coming short to her, as well. She had to consciously not dig her claws through his back as she dragged one more hard swipe up the spine, and then down, and then _out_ —and he fell slack beneath her with a shudder, letting everything go. The raw passion crossed the threshold into pain and it _burned_ , something strange and dark threatening to rip her out soul out of her chest, but after one full sigh the flood of molten emotion receded, leaving a faint stinging in her hand.

She breathed. The room was really quiet. Her physical senses crawled to the surface, and when she opened her eyes everything was where she left it, more-or-less. Sans was a disheveled mess, limbs splayed lifeless against the mattress and sweat dripping into the creases of his closed eyes. He still trembled from the exertion, and was slower to catch his breath—but then, she always recovered first. It was one thing that made her good at her job.

The crystal charm throbbed, biting into her palm, and she fumbled to pick it up. "Wow," she whispered. It wasn't only caustic as frostbite, but also felt four-fold heavier, and there was no trace of its stock lavender hue—only the darkest ocean blue. It was painful to the touch—it felt... hideous. Dangerous.

 _This is the power the shady man wants_ , she realized with a pang of dread. She untied the cord to the necklace and pocketed the charm right away, not entertaining any second thoughts about the job.

Sans seemed relieved to be rid of it, too. He settled into a contended puddle of bones with a groan as heady as a cat's purr. The lights of his half-lidded eyes drifted up to her, the smile on his face a touch delirious—but, strangely, genuine. "mmm... you..." Before he sank into slumber, she read an un-mumbled word that sounded like _stay_.

She fell back on her elbow and glumly shook her head. It was too risky, even if the prospect of not having to move again until morning was tempting. "Nope. Rules." She delicately plucked their shades apart, broke the link and sat up, gathering her bearings. It was too quiet, really, and a glance in the corner revealed why: the trash-nado was broken again. _Hah, he's not going to like that._

She rose and left the room. The rest of the house was peacefully dark, suggesting that Papyrus was fast asleep, as well. Her eyes worked to adjust to the gloom and she gingerly touched the wall for a guide on her way to the stairs. She brushed against another door and stopped, curious.

Her heart was still recovering from working—it could be a draining experience, leaving the blood heavy in her veins—but she had enough lingering excitement to want to try one more experiment tonight.

Papyrus's door was covered in lettered stripes and signs (that probably read to the effect of 'keep out,' but she'd never know), yet was unlocked. She crept in on her toes, mouse-silent.

There was a night-light plugged into the wall ( _Of course there is_ ), illuminating a tidy, well-swept corner. The rest of the bedroom looked well-kempt, if... juvenile. She took stock of the toys posed on a table, a spotless floor rug, a cardboard box full of bones, and a bed (a proper bed, not just Sans's approximation of throwing a dirty pile of stuffing into a corner) in the shape of a car. The blankets and sheets were primly tucked around the sleeping form of Papyrus, who lay rod-straight in his bed as a corpse would in its coffin.

His eyes were closed (as much as they could be), and he wasn't moving, so it was safe to assume he was sleeping soundly. She stalked closer and readied her magic. _I'm going to get that reading for sure, this time._

She wasn't going to touch him—if he turned out to be a light sleeper, it was going to be tough explaining her way out. Now that she knew about the high concentration of magic in his aura, she wouldn't need to, anyway.

 _Mind, matter, magic..._ One hand cleared a safe path, crafting a soap bubble of airy magic, and her shade followed. She hovered around his chest, picking through the ribs, looking for... _Hmmm. Where's that pesky soul?_ There were iridescent spots in her shade's vision, magic crackling around her shield, but everything past that was cold, gray bone. She combed the whole chest cavity and didn't find anything of note. _Nothing like his brother at all. How are these guys even related?_

She didn't give up yet, roaming up the neck and rooting through his skull, and taking extra care at the subtle twitch of his brow and jaw as she ghosted through. _Keep on dreaming, pal. Nothing to see, here._ Finally, she struck upon something, like unearthing a vein of warm copper ore. It had the unmistakable heartbeat of a soul, and was imprinted against the back of his cranial cavity. It was just... in a weird shape, and a weird place.

Her shade gave it a feather's touch, trying to discern the pattern it made against the bone between its lively pulsing. It was difficult to get a clear picture using only her shade, but she could make out certain curves and pointed corners, and slowly pieced together the image of... something familiar.

 _I should know this,_ flitted to mind, and those words turned the key on exactly where she'd seen the pattern before: in snow and dirt and old wood and faded blue ink.

It's a brand, it's a brand _it's a fucking BRAND_ -

She withdrew from his aura was swiftly as possible without bumping into anything wakeful, opened her eyes and breathed a short sigh of victory. _I fucking KNEW it_ , she proclaimed to nobody. She didn't think it would mean anything in the long run, but it was nice to see hard proof with her own eyes.

 _Papyrus is a golem._

The idea lingered in her head as she stole her way downstairs and curled up on the couch. The thing about golems was that they didn't just _happen_ on accident, the way human children often did (albeit carnally.) Golems were created deliberately, with a lot of skill and material and purpose, which wasn't dissimilar to Grillby's description of monster conception. Were all monsters a type of golem, then? The difference between the snowman she'd taken apart and Papyrus was the brand: the former was drawn in matter, and the latter in _soul energy_ , which was a whole other echelon of golem-craft. She'd need to read other monsters to get a bigger picture.

...but for now, sleep was a better idea.


	15. Spoils

Papyrus didn't have a lot of appreciation for the art of sleeping. She had a poor reckoning of time in this place, but didn't figure even an hour had passed before the light was on in his bedroom and the sounds of bones scuffling could be heard upstairs. The occasional heavy footstep and _clunk_ could be heard every other hour until morning seeped in, giving her a fitful night of sleep, at best.

She was sunken ventrally into the lumpy sofa cushions, face pressed lamely into a pillow when Papyrus finally descended the steps and whistled his way into the kitchen.

"FORTUNE TELLER, ARE YOU STAYING FOR BREAKFAST AGAIN? I JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT THIS NEW DISH CALLED 'TOAST.' I'M GOING TO TRY IT TODAY! RIGHT AFTER I RE-CALIBRATE THIS SMOKE DETECTOR..."

It was working fine, both discovered minutes later. She was served a slab of charred bread and ringing ears for breakfast, and after the clamor failed to summon Sans to the table, his brother jogged upstairs to the rescue.

 _'Here we go again,'_ she thought, overwhelmed by deja-vu. At any second Papyrus would start hammering the war-drum against sleeping through the morning.

 _bang bang bang_. And there it goes.

"SANS, IF YOU SLEEP IN MUCH LONGER YOU WON'T HAVE TIME FOR BREAKFAST! YOU'LL BE LEAVING OUR GUEST TO EAT IT ALONE. IT'S NOW CROSSING THE LINE FROM LAZY INTO RUDE, YOU KNOW."

She used the distraction to discreetly toss her piece of toast out a window. She'd tell the bastard child of bread and a lump of coal to go burn in hell, but it looked like it already made a round-trip.

The _bangs_ persisted for two more rounds, and then a long pause. She heard a door creak ajar, some padded footsteps, and then another long bout of silence. The sheer lack of an argument, or... any kind of dialogue up there prickled her suspicions, and when she heard Papyrus's voice return, it put a leaden lump in her stomach.

"FORTUNE TELLER. CAN YOU COME UPSTAIRS?"

Bolting out the front door and not looking back was an option that crossed her mind. Instead, against her good instincts, she plodded up the steps. _'Fuck all my biscuits, Sans isn't waking up. Again. And this bright spark's putting two and two together.'_

She stepped into San's room, joining Papyrus to stand at the foot of a dirty old mattress and its utterly, blissfully unconscious occupant. He still wore a funny, cat-like smile and appeared as if he hadn't even twitched from where she left him last night.

"HMM," Papyrus thought aloud. "IT SEEMED ODD WHEN THIS HAPPENED THE OTHER DAY. HE WOULDN'T WAKE UP FOR ANYTHING, AND AS MUCH AS HE LIKES TO SLEEP, I KNOW MY BROTHER DOES SO VERY LIGHTLY. NOW IT'S HAPPENED AGAIN, AND HERE YOU ARE, JUST LIKE LAST TIME." He turned to face her, both hands on his hips and his every facet sharp and stern. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?"

 _Oh, shit. He's... actually upset about this._ Angry, even. Suddenly Grillby's threat sounded like a picnic, compared to being locked in a room with this version of Papyrus. He seemed the type to invoke some kind of "mother lifting a car off a baby" freakish strength in a situation where he deemed his brother was in legitimate danger, and she didn't want to be on the receiving end of it.

"It's not that bad," she said hastily. "He woke up last time, right? He'll do it again, if you give him some time."

Papyrus took one step closer, like a freight engine slowing bearing down on a stalled car. "THAT'S NOT WHAT I ASKED. WHAT DID YOU DO?"

It took every ounce of her willpower not to shrink from his glare. "Okay, so, yes, we did do something together. It just wore him out, is all. We were playing a game," she fibbed.

His flinty expression relented with an intrigued blink. "A GAME? LIKE CHARADES?"

"Y...eah," she agreed uneasily. "You could say it was an adult version of that."

He folded his arms in distaste. "YOU MEAN YOU WERE PLAYING WITH BAD WORDS? THAT FILTHY LANGUAGE YOU USE IS QUITE SCANDALOUS, I'M AFRAID TO TELL YOU. I CAN'T SAY I APPROVE."

 _You can eat a big scabby dick if you have something to say about my language, motherfucker_ , was not the best response, she realized. "Er, sorry?" she tested an apology, instead.

It tasted horrible, but seemed to mollify Papyrus. His shoulders sagged with a sigh. "BUT. WE'RE ALL ADULTS HERE, AREN'T WE? MY BROTHER'S ALLOWED TO PLAY WITH WHATEVER OR WHOEVER HE WANTS. YOU SHOULDN'T APOLOGIZE, FORTUNE TELLER, BUT IT WOULD BE NICE TO WARN ME IF YOUR GAMES ARE GOING TO KEEP SANS UP LATE. HE DOES HAVE TO WAKE UP EARLY FOR WORK, YOU KNOW."

Once again, before her brain could check it over, she spouted out, "I can work his post today, if that's the deal." _Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck._

His expression softened even more. "YOU WILL? THAT'S VERY KIND OF YOU, FORTUNE TELLER! I CAN LET SANS KNOW, ONCE HIS LAZY BONES FINALLY GET UP."

"Gah, it's... no problem," she muttered in self-defeat.

Papyrus gave his brother another worried look. "HE _WILL_ GET UP, RIGHT?"

Her fingers guiltily closed around the crystal in her pocket, but then she remembered that it stung to the touch and pulled her hand back out, shaking off its potent not-magic. She drew a breath that was going to be used to say, 'Probably,' until she was interrupted by a long, deep, grating wheeze, full of wet bones and laziness.

Sans started snoring. Papyrus startled at the sound and then relaxed, simultaneously appearing relieved and annoyed. The succubus frowned at the absurd noise.

"Probably," she said.

She cursed her poor negotiation skills all the way to the sentry booth. If she'd only delayed a few more seconds, she could've been spared the tedious day-job. While his sense of humor always fell short, Sans's sense of timing was freaking hilarious, even while asleep.

The booth was deserted, as it ever was. She wrapped herself snugly in her cloak and sat down, braced to pass another long shift with nothing but her thoughts and the already-cold cup of tea she'd bought from the cafe in town.

Those thoughts dwelled on the symbol sketched into the wood behind the counter. _So, Papyrus is a golem, and Sans surely knows about it_. He wouldn't have the shape of his brother's brand memorized if he weren't implicated with his creation. Whether that made Sans himself the golem-crafter or somebody else was yet a mystery. Even more mysterious was that the soul energy used to make that brand had to come from somewhere—or, someone. She didn't know anything about the brothers' "parents," if such even existed.

She could ask, perhaps, but while interrogating Papyrus they hit a wall when he tried to remember too far into his past. Golems rarely had a recollection of the events surrounding their 'birth,' so that might put a pin around the time he was created. _'When we first came here,'_ he had said, likely meaning Snowdin. That was a pretty generous time-frame, and didn't tell her much.

The other problem with asking was that she needed a reason to even care that much, and... she really didn't. Or, she thought she didn't. Was it actually pertinent to her job, or just grim curiosity? She did want to know how the shady man was connected to everything, since he was her client, and he _did_ give her these marks, but she didn't know at which point her honest investigation would turn into nosiness—if it hadn't, already.

"i get to sleep in and somebody else does my job? i'm getting spoiled."

 _"Fuck my mother's grave,"_ she belted out, springing from her seat. Sans was right behind her. How he snuck up to the booth without leaving a single footprint in the undisturbed snow was another feat of _motherfucking sorcery_ , and she was beginning to detest it.

Her scramble set him laughing. "eh heh heh heh heh heh... i got ya, didn't i?"

"Oh, eat a cock." She cooled her skittish pulse with a breath. "How are you feeling now?"

He claimed the little chair she abandoned, folded his arms on the counter and slouched into his heavy jacket, getting cozy. "...lighter," he decided, after thinking on it. "heh, you sure you want to leave? a bag of bones could get used to this."

She walked around the front of the booth and reclined against it, casually prepared to leave. "Don't get too comfortable, slacker pants. Words cannot describe how much I hate this place. I can't wait to burn out of here."

He rolled a simple, frank look up to her. "it's not all bad, is it? surely there's something you like about it?"

"Hmm, well..." She crossed her arms and humored him. "Figuring you and your brother out has been fun. I'll miss that."

"huh... i'll have to make sure you never do, then."

She looked down her shoulder at his enigmatic grin and smirked. He treated it like a big game. She was itching to ask about Papyrus, but it was tricky. Straight-up asking _why_ someone was a golem, a monster, or anything of that ilk was about as offensive as it could get. She didn't think Sans was the type to give a shit about decorum, but even if she figured out how to phrase the question kindly, there was no guarantee of a straight answer. Sans was too... well, 'dodgy' was a nice word for it.

Also, the way he was staring at her was putting her on edge. His impish expression was too much like the one he wore yesterday in the woods, as he toyed with her request and evaded her questions. At length, she felt the table rumble with low, buried chuckles.

"What the hell are you laughing at?"

"you think I'm cute."

She clapped a hand over her face. "Oh god damnit." Of course he remembered _that_ part, and was all too happy to gloat. She made certain to frost over the blush in her cheeks with the coldest glower she could muster. "Let's set something straight, right here and right now, okay? So, when people's souls are linked, like ours were last night, sometimes they say—or fucking _think_ —things they don't actually mean. You understand? Nobody's cute, least of all you. When you go to bed tonight, I want you to be fully confident in the fact that you are a hideous mutant chode, and that you will never be cute in any way, shape or form."

"heh, i know," he said and looked at the table, subdued. After a beat the lights of his eyes snapped back up and the teasing grin returned. "...you still think i'm cute, though."

She groaned. "I'm not living this down, am I?"

"nope."

She breathed out a gust of humiliation and turned away, trudging back into town. "God, kill me. I'm leaving, now."

"see ya."

She hoped not; this job was over.

Hotland's single hotel luxuriated in the deep underground's perpetual nightfall, its neon signs buzzing bright at all hours and washing the alleys around it in energetic colors. She rang the bell in the back and watched the dark bricks sweat over the quietly steaming gutters. A flare of orange light at her back (always behind her, always trying to surprise her) signalled his approach.

"Greetings. Do you have what I'm looking for?"

She fished the crystal charm from her pocket and held it delicately by the string, letting him see its mordant indigo fire. "Sorrow."

The pendant was flung towards his waiting hand. He snatched it, held the charm between two long, spindly fingers and passed back a neutral-sounding, "Hmm?"

"That's the answer. I solved your damn riddle. Do I get a cookie or what?"

He gave a short, mirthless laugh, his shaded eyes trained on the charm. "Huh, I suppose you did. You might be more clever and resourceful than you make yourself out to be. We could use an agent like you."

The very thought of being grounded with the shady man and his seedy crew made something deep inside her _flinch_. "Spare me the job offer, you slick-suited phantom cock. This is what you need to power the gate, right?"

"Of course. I'll commence the project right away. Allow us some weeks to complete the preparations."

She balked at that. "Weeks? You expect me to sit on my ass and wait that long?"

"Patience is a virtue, you know." Sans had just told her that last night. It was even less funny, now. "Don't worry. When we need you..." His black suit appeared to absorb the charm, and he drifted into the shadows like a shark plunging back into the deep. "...we'll call you."

She barreled into the dark after him, but this one, too, had a knack for sorcery. "Hey...! You pin-striped, monochromatic cum bucket!"

But he was gone.


	16. Stationery

**A/N: So, as we go into the third act of this story, I sat down and blocked out the remaining scenes to figure out how many chapters were left: ten, give-or-take, including the epilogue. I hope to get through them as quickly as possible, so you guys get to see how the plot unfolds. I'm excited!**

* * *

Weeks. _Weeks._ He didn't even say how many, so that could easily translate into months, or even... She didn't want to imagine that far ahead. She didn't want to consider being trapped underground with these monsters indefinitely, or the possibility that the shady man was just pulling her strings in order to... well, _'god only knows,'_ as Sans had said.

She hated this whole situation being out of her hands. This was the consequence she had to suffer for making a gate jump with random coordinates; there wasn't always a receiving shrine on the other end. If she only had the power, tools or technical know-how to build a gate shrine herself, she'd be long gone, but instead she had to make a contract with someone who did—and that wasn't even a certainty. After all, if the shady man really had the ability to build a gate, why wouldn't he have done so before now, and solved the huge 'barrier' problem everyone down here was having?

She remembered asking something to that effect on their first meeting, actually. _'Your arrival here has inspired a plethora of possibilities,'_ was his only explanation. She just had to rest on that, and wait for results.

The first thing she did after their last meeting was count her savings, coming to the realization that her current funds weren't going to last 'some weeks.' Hotland's hotel was too pricy to afford her more than a few days, so she had to check into somewhere cheaper.

Fortunately (mileage varied on that word), while buying tea from that nice little cafe in Snowdin, she learned about an inn next door that happened to be more affordable. If she were lucky, she could squeeze a couple of weeks out of that, and then... hope for the best? _Damnit_ , if she wanted any pocket change, she was going to have to work another job. Certain interactions with her last mark kindled an idea, though.

After her last night in a private, comfortable hotel bed, she departed Hotland and moved to Snowdin. Her first stop was the road south of town—she was going to need a little help.

Her hike down the mountain trail was brought to a halt a stone's throw away from a steady knocking sound. She paused to listen, picking up a keen voice between the blows that unmistakably belonged to Papyrus. Her old people-watching habit kicking in, the succubus took a notion to scale a nearby rock formation and spy on him from above.

She found the skeleton immersed in a heap of wooden beams, rope and coarse tools. He was dipping his hand into a bucket of nails and hammering the beams together with a design in mind, although she couldn't distinguish it from a tent or an aborted table at that point in its construction.

Papyrus leaned back from his work, wiped his brow of snowflakes and sawdust and barked a question up the nearest tree. To her surprise, the tree responded in Sans's voice. She squinted through the branches and found the older brother lying along a heavy branch, one foot propped against the trunk and a large sheet of paper spread across his lap. It was too far away to read (even if she could), but the interwoven diagrams and splotches of lettering made it look more like a schematic than a newspaper.

Their conversation sawed through the cold air, and she focused her em-reading to pick it up.

"try to make it thirty degrees."

"HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO HOLD IT STILL THAT PRECISELY? I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW MUCH THIRTY DEGREES IS."

"get a protractor?"

"A PROTRACTOR? I THOUGHT YOU TOLD ME I WOULDN'T HAVE TO MATH FOR THIS."

"it's a measurement, not arithmetic. or just use the wedge."

"OH?" Papyrus pulled an object from a bucket that resembled the toy piece of cheese she found him using for his last 'puzzle.' "CLEVER! NYEH." He set the toy wedge between two wooden planks and got back to hammering.

As he worked, his idle brother intoned, "so, would you rather... smell like a butt and not know about it, or constantly be smelling a butt that nobody else can see or smell?"

Papyrus didn't break his pace to snip, "YOUR MATURITY IS ASTOUNDING." He hesitated. "WHAT KIND OF BUTT IS IT? IF IT'S DOG BUTT, I'VE ALREADY TRIED IT."

"it's random. every day, a different butt. you just wake up to the fresh, unknown scent of a new phantom ass every morning."

"UGH. VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE, I SUPPOSE. IF IT'S THE PRICE OF NOT SMELLING LIKE A BUTT, I'LL HAVE TO TAKE IT."

 _bang. bang. bang._ Papyrus crawled around the contraption to hammer it from another angle. "would you rather..." Sans drawled. "...be itchy for the rest of your life, or sticky?"

"HMM. DOES 'STICKY' MEAN THINGS WILL STAY STUCK TO ME, REGARDLESS OF SIZE OR SHAPE, SO THAT I COULD CARRY THEM AROUND ON MY BODY? LIKE, SAY, PICK UP SPOONS WITH THE BACK OF MY HAND? OR BASKETBALLS WITH MY KNEES?"

"sure."

"WOULD I BE ABLE TO UN-STICKY THINGS, OR IS IT PERMANENT? COULD IT BE THAT I'D HAVE TO WALK AROUND WITH A DOG ATTACHED TO MY LEG FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE?"

"nah, you can take things off, but they'll be sticky, too."

"MMM HMM!" Papyrus planted a purposeful hand on his hip and pointed his hammer to the sky (or, well, the barrier), declaring, "YES, THIS IS A SUPERPOWER I WOULD WANT! I WOULD BE ABLE TO CARRY SO MANY THINGS! IMAGINE OUR GROCERY TRIPS."

"heh, i'd just be tossing soup cans and boxes of cereal at your back as we go down the aisles."

"NYEH, HEH, BY THE TIME WE GOT TO THE CHECK-OUT I'D LOOK LIKE A BIG YARN BALL."

"or one of those lint rollers."

"OH NO, TOO DUSTY." He straightened an excited look. "OH, WHAT IF THEY'RE HAVING ONE OF THOSE 'ALL YOU CAN CARRY' DISCOUNTS? WOULD IT BE CHEATING IF I DIDN'T HAVE TO USE MY HANDS?"

"it'd be a no-finger discount."

Papyrus doubled over with delight. "NYEH, HEHEHEHEHEH!"

They laughed together hard enough to squeeze a hiccup out of Sans, which apparently inspired his next prompt. "eheheh, ow. oh man... would you rather... have the hiccups for the rest of your life, or always feel like you have to sneeze but not be able to?"

"HICCUPS?" Papyrus frowned. "WHY, I NEVER. THAT'S SOMETHING _YOU_ DO, AND IT'S INCREDIBLY ANNOYING EVERY SINGLE TIME. I DON'T THINK I COULD BEAR TO INFLICT THAT KIND OF TORTURE ON EVERYONE AROUND ME."

"that can't-sneeze feeling is pretty bad, though."

"UGH, THAT IS ONE OF THE WORST THINGS. I WOULD PERMANENTLY LOOK LIKE THIS." His nose-less visage scrunched into a sour pucker that looked like someone squashed an angry spider on his face. It made Sans laugh so hard he hiccupped again, and that broke Papyrus's mask so he could laugh along. "NYEH, HEH. COMICAL! BUT THAT WOULD HURT TO KEEP UP ALL DAY. WHAT ABOUT YOU?"

Sans winced through his mirth and rubbed his midsection, considering himself. "...huh. i do hiccup all the time, don't i? never thought about how annoying that gets."

"I'VE TOLD YOU SO! COUNTLESS TIMES."

"guess i should try to tone it down, huh? i'd hate to get my _hiccuppance_ for being too annoying."

Papyrus dropped his face into his hands, defeated. "OH MY GOD."

"eheheheheheheh."

Amusing as their inane hypothetical banter wasn't, the succubus got tired of spying and broke her cover to approach them. "What are you two shitsters up to?"

Papyrus sprang up, eager to greet her. "FORTUNE TELLER! IT'S NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN. I TRUST YOU'RE WELL?"

"i thought you skipped town," Sans tossed down, a hint of accusation under the monotone. She could credit either her em-reading or her own paranoia for that.

"I'm... waiting to hear back from my client," she said carefully. "Might be a hell of a wait, though." She directed a look at Papyrus. "In the meantime, I'm looking for your help."

He cocked a flattered pose. "OH? YOU NEED THE HELP OF THE ONE AND ONLY PAPYRUS? I'D LOVE TO BE OF ASSISTANCE, AS SOON AS WE'RE DONE HERE."

Her gaze fell on the sundry tools and lumber. Among the disparate parts were a hand saw, a rubber duck, a tire iron and a whoopee cushion. "What _are_ you doing here, exactly?"

Papyrus beckoned her with a crooked glove. "I CAN'T SAY TOO LOUDLY, FOR IT IS A SECRET, BUT IF YOU'D COME CLOSER..."

She wasn't falling wholesale for that, again. She approached with her hands closed over her ears for protection. From a conspiratorial not-whisper she gleaned, "IT IS A... _CAT_ -APULT."

"Catapult?" she parroted.

"NO, NO, YOU HAVE TO SAY _CAT_ -APULT, JUST LIKE THAT, OR IT ALL FALLS APART." Papyrus pointed out a cleft, snow-covered boulder that was housing a tiny mouse-burrow. "YOU SEE, THIS IS THE NEXT PHASE OF MY TESTING ON MICE."

"Please don't tell me it..."

"FIRES LIVE CATS!"

"...Okay, please don't tell me any more."

Papyrus wagged his brows in conceit. "ARE YOU SURE? I THINK IT'S QUITE INGENIOUS. THE DOG SQUAD COMMISSIONED ME PERSONALLY TO BUILD IT."

"I'm sure they did," she said flatly.

"I SPENT YESTERDAY GATHERING ALL THE WOOD I'LL NEED, WHILE SANS GOT SOME BLUEPRINTS FROM THE LIBRARY. TODAY I GET TO DO ALL THE COBBLING WHILE SANS..." He spun a frown over his shoulder. "WELL, 'HELPING' IS TOO GENEROUS OF A WORD, ISN'T IT?"

From his reclining tree-bough, Sans offered a thumb's up. "moral support."

"How in god's hell did you get up there?" she had to ask.

"maybe i'm a good climber?"

She looked over his stumpy, squat stature and instantly determined, "You're not."

Papyrus supplied in a galled tone, "IT'S THE SAME WAY HE GETS ANYWHERE: BY CHEATING. I SWEAR, HE COULD WRITE THE BOOK ON IT."

"nah, too lazy to write a whole book. maybe just the cliff notes. then when there's a test on cheating, i could use them to cheat on that, too."

"SO THE CYCLE CONTINUES. YOU'RE A PARADOX OF LAZINESS!"

 _Fucking riveting, this conversation._ "Uh-huh," she said before either spoke again. "Listen, what I need is for you to help me make a sign."

He bounced on his toes and his hands flew to this cheeks, his ebullience making her wonder it were possible for Papyrus's eye-sockets to glitter. "REALLY? SIGN-MAKING IS ONE OF MY FINEST SKILLS!"

"it's true. he helped with the town greeting sign and the one for the library."

Papyrus deflated with a touch of disappointment. "I HEARD THEM SAY THEY'RE GOING TO REPLACE THAT LIBRARY ONE, THOUGH. I THOUGHT MY LETTERING WAS IMPECCABLE!"

"don't take it so hard. some people are just ill-letterate."

"THAT WAS YOUR WEAKEST PUN YET."

"yeah, it needs work."

"IF THAT'S WHAT IT NEEDS YOU'LL NEVER IMPROVE IT, THEN."

"heh, ya got me."

Getting Papyrus to focus on what she was saying while Sans was in the vicinity was like swimming up a waterfall. "Right, well, you two are busy, so... Papyrus, when you're done, any chance you could meet me where we could get supplies?"

"ABSOLUTELY. THE GENERAL STORE IS BEHIND THE INN. THAT'S WHERE EVERYONE GETS... WELL, ANYTHING! IT'S THE ONLY STORE WE HAVE. I CAN MEET YOU THERE IN AN HOUR!"

Behind him, a stack of wooden planks lost their composure and clattered to the ground. "ER... MAKE THAT TWO HOURS."

The general store was as described: a single warehouse that stocked a little bit of everything on every shelf, from bags of flour to jars of beetles. There was a stack of wicker baskets with rope handles for shoppers to use at the door, frozen cabinets in the back that stocked jugs of milk and corn dogs, and a yellow caution sign in the middle of the floor, where a frost-furred sasquatch was spinning wet circles in the cracked tile floor with a mop.

Papyrus, true to his word, arrived two hours after they last spoke. He offered her a 'grand tour of the premises' that amounted to walking down each aisle and reading the name of every labelled product as bombastically as possible until she asked him to stop three times. Highlights of the tour were 'spider sweaters,' a discount bin of dog chew toys, a carton of milk with the picture of a missing lizard-kid on the back (she held her tongue), a rack of novelty hats and a box of 'sugar-coated flies, part of a complete breakfast.'

They eventually found poster-board and some colored markers when a squeaky, feminine voice accosted her. She spun around and fixed her em-reading on a knee-high, fluffy ball with a pair of antennae-tall ears. It waved one of them enthusiastically in lieu of an arm. "Hello wh...! Oh my good gracious." The ball of fuzz bounded up close on a pair of dainty paws and whispered confidentially, "I nearly shouted 'whore' across the whole store. How scandalous. That's not even your name, is it? I heard it at Grillby's so much I just assumed so, and that's terrible. It's, um, Miss Succubus, I believe...?"

"Ohhh, hi Cinny," she recognized the bunny-ball pleasantly enough. "Uh, yeah, Succubus is fine."

"REALLY?" Papyrus cut in, sticking his head over her shoulder and into the conversation. "SUCCUBUS IS SUCH AN EXOTIC NAME! THE GREAT PAPYRUS APPROVES. FORTUNE TELLER, WHY DID YOU NEVER TELL ME TO CALL YOU THAT?"

She recoiled from his invading loudness. "Er, you didn't ask?"

Cinny flopped the tip of her ear sympathetically. "Don't feel bad, Papyrus. She never told us, either! And I'm so sorry about the 'whore' thing, dearie. It's really embarrassing. You have to excuse Malk. He can be very... abrasive."

The succubus rolled her eyes. "Tch, yeah, like cheap toilet paper. Really knows how to chap my ass."

Cinny's fur quivered with a titter. "Hehehe, so funny! What's toilet paper? Oh, don't tell me. I just mean to say, Malk's a good fellow. He really bailed Grillby out once, you know, back when he first opened that place."

"Really?" she asked, half interested. "What happened?"

"Well, there was a fire." She held out both ears to catch the succubus's not-too-shocked reaction. "I know what you're thinking, but no—Grillby would never let his magic get out of hand like that. Turns out somebody left a coffee pot on overnight."

"Oh." That was less dramatic than she'd expected, after that first sentence.

"I DID THAT, ONCE," Papyrus chimed in. "I DON'T EVEN DRINK COFFEE!"

"Shame. It would explain a lot," the succubus grumbled beneath Papyrus's next words. "DID YOU KNOW THAT SMOKE CAN STAIN YOUR CEILING?"

"Of course, dear," Cinny humored him, and then turned back to the succubus. She wondered if everyone in town regarded Papyrus so dismissively, and felt sorry for him for approximately half a second. Then he said, "OURS IS HIGHLY CAFFINATED NOW," and the feeling passed.

"Anyway, it was terrible. Grillby didn't have the money to fix the place back up, but Malk gave him a loan. You know he's got that lumber business outside town, and makes gold like you wouldn't believe. Those two have been thick as thieves ever since."

"Huh, would've never guessed. I thought he was just a bum, getting by on his good looks and stellar people skills."

Her derision flew over Cinny's head. "He has those, too, teehee. Anyway, darlings, it was nice to see you! I need to pick up some bun-chow for my little bun-buns. They're going positively bonkers back at the house. Papyrus, you should come back to Grillby's sometime! I know your brother would love it."

"I'LL CONSIDER IT." The wary pitch to his voice narrow pinch to his eyes suggested he wouldn't.

She bought a poster, markers, glitter and glue and allowed Papyrus to help her carry them back to his house. Together they made an evening of cutting and gluing the poster to a cardboard mat, and then spelling out,

 _FORTUNE TELLING_

 _15 G_

...while Sans snickered down at them from upstairs. The stickier points were determining the best price and convincing Papyrus not to draw every letter in the shapes of bones. The end result looked appropriate (and very shiny), but without being able to read it herself, she just had to trust Papyrus's spelling, and that he made the right call when declining Sans's proposition to change the 'O' to an 'A.'

Before she could take the fruit of their hard work out the door, she was stuck by Sans's request. "so, we're getting a cut of this little enterprise of yours, right?"

"Uh..." she faltered, turning around slowly to meet his gaze at the top of the stairs.

"com'on," he goaded. "papyrus just helped you make that sign and everything." His grin tipped into a crafty expression. "how 'bout fifty percent?"

"DON'T BE A MISER, SANS," Papyrus cut him down. "WE'RE JUST HELPING OUT A FRIEND!"

"uh-huh..." Sans sulked away into his room, and she sighed with relief.

The succubus gathered the finished poster in one arm and waved over the table covered in supplies with the other. "You can keep the markers and crap. Thanks for everything. I'll buy you lunch sometime, okay?"

Luckily, Papyrus was impressed with this offering. "REALLY? WOWIE, ALL THIS GLITTER TO MYSELF! I COULD BEDAZZLE ALL MY THINGS. IMAGINE THE SPARKLY POSSIBILITIES! AND LUNCH WOULD BE SWELL, TOO. STOP AND SAY HI ANYTIME YOU LIKE!"

She nodded and ducked out the front door. Papyrus gave it a friendly slam after her. Now outside, she could see the raincoat bear and rabbit lighting the street lamps down the main road, heralding the underground's twilight.

"Well, this has been a day," she decided, and turned her feet in the direction of the inn.

Before she reached the edge of Papyrus's house, his brother stepped out from around the corner. "heya."

She jumped, nearly dropping her sign. "Gah! You're like a damn ghost, popping out of shit. The fuck's your deal?"

He folded his arms and leaned against the side of the house, one foot poised against the chipped paint. "twenty percent."

It took a second to register what he was after, and she gaped in outrage. "You shitting me?"

"nope. you don't do anything for free, so why should i? you owe my brother for the help."

"I thanked him, didn't I?"

"gratitude don't pay the bills." He tipped an incredulous eye, tone dripping with amused cynicism. "and do you really think papyrus is the one in charge of our household finances?"

She puffed up with a glower. "He already said it's on the house, so yeah, I fucking do. I bought the supplies with my money, anyway."

"and pap's directions. fifteen percent."

She relaxed, realizing that he had no real power here, and scoffed at this lousy bargaining. "Tch, like I owe you shit. You didn't do anything at all!"

He studied the tips of his finger-bones (as if he had fingernails), feigning a cool upper hand. "ten percent, and i won't tell anybody about how cute you think i am."

At that, she laughed outright. "Really? Bitch, please, like that holds any water with me."

"if you ever want to eat in peace at grillby's again, it will."

She opened her mouth to laugh again, and then paused. It would've been a witless threat, if Grillby's weren't the only place in town that served hot meals—not to mention alcohol—and she was regrettably growing fond of both. Yet if she had to listen to Malk's crowing even _once_ over something that lame and embarrassing, she was going to smash some heads... and consequently get banned from the bar. She really didn't put it past Sans to sabotage her at his expense, either—the guy had no shame. "...You're a goddamn scoundrel. Five percent."

Sans at least knew when to take what he could get. He snapped his fingers and winked. "heh, deal. later, succu-butt." He swung two steps around the corner of the house, swaggering out of sight, and when she checked down that way he was gone.

"Cocky little fucker," she said to thin air, and then sought out a bed.

Fortunately, she didn't have to haggle with the innkeeper to get a weekly discount on one of their rooms. It was nice and homely, with a fine quilted bedcover and wooden furnishings, including a small dresser. There was a lingering scent of wet fur and old bark about it, and barely enough room to swing a chair, but the whole space was dry and soft enough to give her a good rest.

 _At least the bed isn't lumpy_ , she thought bitterly hours later, as the residents in the room next door snored loud enough to shake the wall. She couldn't imagine what hellish monster could produce the noise; it sounded like a firing squad made of rusty belt sanders. As the cacophony went on into midnight, she fixed her bloodshot eyes on a porcelain figurine of a pig in a tutu. It tap-danced across the dresser with each rattling blast until it took its own life, diving off the edge and shattering on the floor.

She envied it, a little bit.


	17. Fortune Telling

"You will... be anxious about a confrontation with a superior today."

The first place she set up shop was the docks north of town. There was a spot where the river-person picked up commuters on their daily route to Hotland or the Capital. When she sat behind her sign on a sawed-off tree stump nearby, she attracted a few curious customers, as well as another friendly wave and compliment on her cloak from the ferryman (ferrywoman?)

"Really? Ohmygod," a rat-monster squeaked. He was hardly bigger than a snowball and spun nervously inside a large striped scarf. Reading him was like turning on a hairy, yarn-filled blender.

Although squatting in the cold wasn't her favorite thing to do, it was a pretty good gig. She used a combination of soul reading, horoscopes (although she had absolutely no discernment of the heavens from underground) and something she called 'bird prophesy' (which was just flagging the first critter she saw that day as a divination) to cook a crock of bullshit that was supposed to predict each customer's fortunes for the day. Key to the exercise was never giving specific details (too easy to debunk) and never forecasting too far into the future, to give the customer a reason to come back.

"Mayhaps," she said. Another key was to never speak in absolutes.

The soul reading was the cincher. The sensation of combing through a customer's aura not only sold the experience, but gave her the opportunity to study a larger pool of monster souls. She could always incorporate emotions gleaned from their auras into her predictions, to boot.

"I knew it! I frickin' knew it, my boss is going to try to card me today. He's been creeping on me the past two weeks! I think he knows about my scrabble addiction. If he cards me, I'll have to go to PA. You ever been to one of those meetings? Oh god, Puzzlers Anonymous is a fate worse than death. What do I do?"

Every monster's soul fell into a trend that she slowly learned to master. The mat-magic that comprised their auras didn't function too differently from spirit energy, but she had to make a concentrated effort to translate the magical impulses into something her shade could understand. Once she got the hang of it, each reading got easier.

"Be assertive, but don't volunteer information," she advised. "You don't have to lie, but you don't have to tell your boss anything, either."

She also noted with mixed curiosity and dismay that each monster read the same color. They all had odd little bell-shaped souls, pointed at the top like an inverted heart, and each was the same bland grey hue. None of them defied her first glimpse of the fallen lizard kid, yet Papyrus and Sans defied all of them by a drastically colorful margin. The brothers both contained that same plain, white magic, but only superficially. Beneath that (even if hidden in a brand), their spirit energy was remarkably substantial.

"Assertive. Assertive! Right," the rat chirped, pumping its tiny fists out of the scarf. "I don't owe that big blustery dill-hole the time of day!"

"Er, I didn't say that..." she hedged. "You should probably give him at least that much. And without insults."

It was interesting, but not anything she didn't already know. The shady man knew those two were special, as well, but she really wanted to know _why_. At the rate this was going, her tail was going to freeze off before she got another clue.

"No no no, you're right! I'll never move up in the world if I don't sack up and tell the man to get off my back! I'm nobody's desk monkey! I mean, no offense to monkeys. Fine people."

One thing that monsters and humans would always have in common was their gullible streak of self-interest. People of all kinds are always itching to be told that they're special and destined for greatness, and alluding to that 'greatness' via fortunes would forever be a hot commodity—a few gold for a spiritual pat on the back, as it were.

The rat checked the world's tiniest wristwatch and jumped. "Ack, gotta bolt, before I'm late!" He was scurrying off the docks before she could catch him. "Thank you, fortune-telling lady!"

She made a hundred and fifty gold her first day, which was nothing to sneeze at. The next day she set up shop on the road into Waterfall, catching monsters on their way to slug and snail ranches as well as fishermen to choice pools of eel and catfish. There was even a clam-headed gentleman who farmed mushrooms in these dankest reaches of the underground. These customers talked more and paid less (she was haggled down to ten gold per reading by a mulish talking toadstool with teeth like railroad spikes), but the location was nicer. She'd rather be damp than cold, to have her druthers.

Her day-job alternated between those two spots. Once she got tired of sitting and soul-reading she'd retire early to the inn, or go to Grillby's for something toasty to eat. She had the misfortune of bumping into people she knew there, especially Sans, but he didn't yet mention his "cut" of her earnings. The third day she worked at Waterfall he was there, even, snow-covered sentry booth and all. He spent the whole shift snoozing and snickering behind her back, one lazy eye prying each time she sat down with a customer.

One of these customers was a large brown bear, whose burly-yet-unctuous manners reeked of unspent testosterone. "Well hello, gorgeous," he started their transaction.

She peaked an eyebrow and forced a civil tone. "Interested in learning your fortune today, sir?"

The bear's piles of fur shook with a laugh, the hair around his collared shirt standing out almost bashfully. "Sir? Why, madam, you can call me-"

"Marcus," she snatched the word from his mouth with a smirk. Em-reading sometimes made this job too easy.

The bear's head knocked back in surprise. "Why, yes! Mighty impressive, fine lady. I do believe I'd be interested."

"Well," she said, rising from her seat (technically a toadstool, yet remarkably comfortable) in a way that bared her curves most appealingly. "Sit down right here, my dear friend, and we'll begin."

Marcus followed directions, sitting tall and still while she worked her magic to stir up his aura. He was the chatty type, though, which made the reading take longer than it should.

"You must be new to these parts. I'd certainly remember a face as fine as yours. What sort of monster are you, now?"

"A succubus," she answered succinctly, trying to focus on yet another grey soul.

"Now that's a new one by me, for sure. You're more than welcome in our town, though. Why, Snowdin's always looking out for new monsters. We're as friendly as you get."

A hard snort sounded behind her. She didn't have to turn to see it came from Sans. _Prick better keep his yap shut while I do this job, or I'll sew it shut for him._ She then remembered that the skeleton didn't move his jaw to talk, but didn't let that hamper her unspoken threat. She'd _find a way_ to make it extremely uncomfortable for him, if it came to it.

Marcus plowed ahead talking, never minding the audience. "If you don't mind my askin', where does such a lovely vixen as yourself curl up to sleep at night?"

She held her tongue and rolled her eyes, reconsidering this job. Reading ordinary monster souls was already getting stale—so, would _marking_ one make an interesting challenge?

The bear shivered as her shade danced along his flank and her claws brushed the fur at the back of his neck. "O-Oh ho, my dear, you're givin' me goosebumps. I'd say you're castin' a spell on me, if your beauty hadn't already done the trick."

"Is that so?" she purred, her shade sniffing out an obvious streak of desire. "I foresee you having a good time tonight, Marcus."

Marcus's heavy gut twitched with a spirited chuckle. "Oh really?"

Her hand sank into the prickled fluff along the bear's spine, pouring her shade's magic through. "Absolutely. I'd hate to spoil all the details here, though. I could give you a... much more interesting fortune-reading in private."

The bear leaned into her touch with a stifled groan. "That's mighty tempting..." he rumbled, a sliver of drool escaping his muzzle. He smacked his chops to reel it back in and then rolled his brow towards her suggestively. "And where might I find such a good fortune?"

She bent towards his ear and pinched it between her claws. "Maybe later, if you come knocking at the inn, a door of opportunity will be opened to you." She then pulled away, the spear of her tail lightly scraping the bear's leg. "Until then, that fortune's on the house, big boy."

Marcus wobbled a bit and then stood upright, tipping her a long grin. "We shall see about it, m'lady." The bear ambled away.

 _Got me a mark tonight_ , she noted, pleased with the chance to triple her earnings. She twisted a look back to the sentry booth, where Sans had fixed her with another of those strange, unreadable expressions. "The fuck you lookin' at?" she barked.

Sans turned away with a low, mirthless laugh, and didn't speak a word the rest of the day. She was packing up her belongings for the evening when he finally crossed the twenty feet separating their stations to talk to her.

"i see you made ninety gold today," he said, rocking on his heels and leering at her purse.

"You're serious about that five percent, aren't you?"

His smile might've been charming, on anything but a skull.

"Such an asshole," she groused as she counted her coins. "Here, just take five. Don't spend it all in one place, champ."

He gave the coin a flip, caught and then pocketed it in one smooth motion. "i always do, though. say, you gone very deep into waterfall? there's a good shop around here. old gerson has a bunch of stuff for sale you might want for this fortune-telling racket. make it look more legit, ya know?"

"I'll check it out," she huffed, not eager to take business advice from such a huge slouch, but not too excited about going straight to her next mark, either. She could take a detour to go shopping.

She nearly missed the place, crawling through a dark and narrow stretch of cavern that was lit from the roof with luminous bits of star-shrapnel. She just happened to stumble over a wooden door frame hammered around a niche in the rock. Ducking inside revealed a colorful shop populated by paper lanterns, a shelf weighed down with what she'd best describe as pretty garbage, and a shuffling old tortoise.

"'ey, a new customer! Welcome to my shiny abode, eh heh!"

She recognized his briny laugh and khaki shirt. "Didn't I see you doing stand-up comedy?"

"Did ya? Oh, I like to flex the ol' funny bone every once in a while. Keeps me young at heart, hah! So, you see somethin' here you like?"

She sifted through a lot of junk, carefully dusted off and masquerading as merchandise. Among the odds and ends were a fistful of tarnished silver beads, a bicycle horn, a stack of soggy yellow parchment and a stuffed toy unicorn with one leg torn off, bleeding stuffing onto the counter. "Where do you get all this crap?"

The tortoise roughly elbowed her. "Where we get all our crap: washed down from the surface, heh! You know what they say, about one man's trash being another monster's treasure! By that measure I've got the best treasure in the underground, wouldn't ya say?"

"I'll say it's somethin' else..." she muttered, and picked through a shelf of broken pottery until she discovered something almost useful. Her hand wrapped around the base of a heavy glass ball and turned it upside-down, watching a flurry of white grains swimming around a tiny sculpture of a portly, red-clad human driving a sleigh led by a pair of deer.

The shopkeeper flashed a toothless grin. "Fancy the snow globe, lassie? It's quite a catch."

She hummed at it. 'Snow globe' or whatever, it looked like a magic crystal ball, and what fortune-teller could do without one of those? "How much?"

"Oh, it'll be a right fifty for such a classic human artifact."

"Fifty? For this tiny thing?"

"Eh heh! You got any reckonin' who that is? They call 'im Old Saint Nick on the surface. Does some crazy work, bewitchin' children every winter solstice. Not that anybody down here remembers what a proper winter is. Or a solstice! Heh!"

"So... this guy's some kind of sorcerer?"

The tortoise cocked a wild, canny eye at her. "Gweh, heh! A Christmas wizard? Now there's a funny notion. I see you're not from the surface, either. Never you mind this rambling old man, heh! Fifty gold?"

 _Was he testing me or something?_ She scowled at the weird sales pitch and dug up the money he asked. Snow globe now in hand, she exited the shop and immediately bumped into a suit of plated armor.

The armor shuffled backwards, polished steel glinting in the simulated starlight and helmeted face tipped in a gesture of surprise. The succubus moved to walk around it, half an apology on her lips until a bright shaft of blue cut her path. She blinked, choking on her thought, as a spear of mat-magic warbled in place, sticking the adjacent wall with enough strength to crack the rock.

 **"You!"** the suit bellowed. It then ripped off the helmet to display a mask of anger on its distinctly-pointed, fishy face. It was Undyne, and inside all that armor she looked immensely menacing. ...and pissed.

The succubus grimaced and backed into the wall. _Oh, fuck me._

Undyne planted one arm across the succubus's other side, blocking her in. "Why, I ought'a give you a good whack for waking me up like that the other night! You ever heard'a disturbing the peace, bitch?!"

"Kicking me off a waterfall wasn't punishment enough?" she tried.

Undyne leaned in close, her spittle tasting like anchovies and fury. "I dunno, you tell me!"

"Undyne!" blasted from the doorway next to them. The tortoise appeared to the rescue.

The fish woman backed off an inch, visage contorted awkwardly. "Er, Mister Gerson!"

The tortoise wagged his cane in their direction, rapping Undyne on the arm. "You're not harassin' one of my customers, are you?"

The magic spear dissolved in a hurry and Undyne stepped away, fins wriggling in a flustered expression. "Psh, as if...!? I wouldn't dream of it, old man!"

Gerson cracked a knowing smile. "Of course ya wouldn't. You're the one to fix troubles now, not start 'em, eh? Heh!" He shuffled back into his shop, satisfied.

Undyne released a sigh of relief, followed by a bark of laughter. "Heh, can't put anything past Mister Gerson! Gotta love that old codger." She then shot the succubus a steely grin. "You're one lucky punk! I see you again, it's gonna be a match! I'll take you down at arm-wrestling, paddle-ball, whatever you got! Nyah!"

The armored fish trotted away with loud, clapping steps, amused with herself. The succubus looked down at her snow globe, which survived the freak assault, to her amazement.

 _Did I... just make a friend of that psycho?_


	18. Malaise and Ketchup

That night Marcus gave her one hundred gold, twenty for a tip, and a lesson on monster sex.

The bear knocked on her door stinking of wild berries and beer, and could barely contain himself—so, he was a typical mark up to that point. However, one of the first things he did once she sat him on the bed was reach into his chest with a fistful of magic and withdraw the core of his soul, holding it out like a prize medal.

To say she was nonplussed by the gesture was an understatement. When working exotic magic, there was never a need to go directly for the heart of the spirit. A reading would give an idea of where to find it, and then that knowledge was used to _avoid_ it. For the most part, everyone's "sweet spot" was well and far away from it, anyway. It was all about meddling with the aura, which connected to the soul, but wasn't the same as poking and prodding one's spiritual heart directly. That was actually rather dangerous, for reasons that were kind of obvious: one false swipe, and the mark was toast.

It was bizarrely trusting of him to offer up his heart on a platter, spiritually-speaking, and she asked if all monsters were crazy like that. After a lot of confused grumbling, she learned that _soul-fondling_ (for lack of a better term) was just the way it was done here. From where she stood it seemed like the most dangerous route of intercourse on any planet she'd ever visited (and she'd seen many, many unspeakable kinks carried out behind closed doors—usually in dungeons), yet a cursory check below the bear's waist confirmed that it was a custom borne of a lack of options. She was a little relieved for that, actually—it meant fewer fluids to clean off her bed. _'Mother of all dogs fucking, put that away,'_ she had chided, and his crestfallen look compounded when she gave him the 'no touching' rule.

Once she got comfortable on his lap and started playing his aura like a fiddle, he quit complaining. It was a real trick to convert her not-magic to magic and back, and the whole process left her sweating with exhaustion, but if his wolfish howling and the puddle of drool on her pillows were any indication, her mark was delightfully debauched.

The second he recovered, she took her payment and booted the big brute out of the room. The next morning she found him curled up in a sated, hungover pile in the inn's lobby. The innkeeper was prodding him with a broomstick, trying to rouse the big son of a bitch and only succeeding at popping one of the bubbles of snot issuing from his snout. As she passed, the rabbit drilled her with a dirty look and the succubus strolled out the exit, laughing.

 _Another successful mark._ These "monsters" weren't as tough to crack as she initially thought.

She brought her sign and snow globe out to the northern docks and told fortunes the rest of the morning. It went as well as it usually did, although she didn't miss the odd looks her 'crystal ball' received from customers and passers-by. A ball of slime wearing a pink bow asked if it was for sale, claiming it would look nice on their mantelpiece; a hare-child pointed and giggled before getting towed away by a parent; and a pair of young fish-men grinned at her from a distance, smelling like ridicule.

Deciding to get a second opinion on her 'human artifact,' she took a lunch break and headed for the cafe, craving hot tea and an honest waitress. On the way, she was snagged by a shout.

"Heeeeeey, lady!"

She stopped and peered into the schoolyard across the street. It was deserted of children, although a snowman was waving one of its twigs at her.

"Yes, you! Could we have a word?"

When she drew near, she saw it was the same snow-golem she'd met last week. _Kids must have put him back together or something._ It wiggled the buttons on its face in a way that might pass for a wink. "Heya, remember me?"

"Yeah?" She wondered where this conversation was going, and why she needed to care.

"Well, I was hoping we could come to terms about that little incident, last time we met. I don't know what it's like where you come from, but taking people's heads and throwing them down hills is very rude in these parts! You see what I'm saying?"

She stifled a snort. "What, you want a fuckin' apology? If you think I'm going to kowtow to a goddamn mound of frozen piss, you're barking up the wrong tree." It was a _stupid golem_ —well, so was Papyrus. It felt different with Papyrus, probably because of the quality of his construction. Some golems just had more value than others, and 'three balls of snow stitched together with magic crayons and twigs' didn't rank high on that list (also, she was sure that if it came to blows, she could punt the shit out of some snow. Solid bone was a different story.) She started walking away.

"Okay, have it your way~" the golem sang, and the shrill whistle that followed made her turn back in a double-take.

Behind the trees, under the neighboring hills, around the corner of the schoolhouse—little kids poured from every avenue in front of her. They wordlessly collected in a semi-circle behind the snowman that engulfed the entire block, and the succubus counted over thirty of them: snow hares, drakelets, ducklings, and at least one squat sasquatch.

"There she is!" the snowman cheerfully declared, head rotating until it was facing her backwards and sideways. Its features crawled into something unsettling and its voice bottomed out into the deepest, most threatening words she'd ever heard.

 **"GET HER."**

Dozens of tiny hands suddenly produced snowballs. She took a step back from the army of small, stony scowls. Talking her way out of this felt like an option, but the most she could articulate at that exact moment was, "...Uh, fuck."

She started running. The battle cry that chased her into the street was peppered with frozen grapeshot. Powdery explosions lit her heels, and she vaulted over a wooden privacy fence to escape the onslaught. When she caught a break and glanced back, at least ten of the little bastards were hopping the fence with ease, and several of the winged ones were honing in like buzzing helicopters.

A boar in a moldy, sleeveless shirt stuck his muzzle into the backyard she was trespassing and grunted something to the tune of "get off my lawn," although she wasn't concerned with her em-reading at that moment. The succubus sprinted ahead, counting on her long legs to carry her out of the line of fire, but the second she stepped back onto the sidewalk, the icy pavement split her pace into pathetic staggering.

As she clambered past the cafe, swearing over her busted knees and bruised ankles, she thought it must have made a real sight: a small horde of screaming children bearing down on a single adult with curses and snowballs. Pedestrian traffic halted for the bizarre parade, and she passed through a gauntlet of queer looks and un-readable shouting.

She was almost impressed—not only was the mob keeping up, but by the time she hit the road into the woods, snowballs were still hitting their mark, welting her backside and legs.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-" Her foot caught a tree root. "-fuuuuuuuuck." She careened into a snow drift. The kids caught up in a heartbeat, piling bullets of snow onto her fresh grave and barking swear words she couldn't translate if she tried. The downpour of snowballs went on for another solid minute, flying in from every angle and leaving her paralyzed to even meet the eyes of her assailants.

Finally, once she was buried in winter and dizzy from the blows, the snowballs relented and the children trickled away, back towards town. One of them (a heavy bastard, as far as she could tell) planted a foot on her tail and spat on her for a parting shot. It would have smarted if she weren't already covered in slush.

She lay there for a spell, breathing in the sharp, cold air until it felt safe to move again. Spent snowballs sloughed off every inch of her body as she sat up. Behind her, the disturbed tundra leading into town looked like it had been trampled by a small herd of livestock. She foggily wondered if she were on a quest to get her shit kicked in by every denizen of the underground.

Then she looked to her left, and saw a sentry booth. The humored glint to Sans's eyes told her he saw everything.

"You could've fucking helped," she snarled.

"i could," Sans offered, hardly sitting up straight to consider her, "but that's not my style. it's not even my job description. i just observe and report, you know? i mean, i guess i could get involved if things start to _snowball_ out of hand-"

She scrubbed her face and groaned. "Goddamnit, shut up."

The comical lilt to his voice persisted. "hey, that kind of temper's not very cool. you should chill out, y'know?"

"Please go fuck yourself."

"or if you're hurt i could put some ice on it—oh, wait." Slain by his own bad humor, he rested his head on his arms, chuckling thickly into the sleeves of his coat.

"Stuff your jokes, you goddamn bleached jack-o-lantern." She stiffly got back on her feet and checked her cloak pockets, drawing out the snow globe. By some small miracle it had survived the assault without a scratch. Remembering why she was out walking to begin with, she glanced at the sentry booth. "Hey, I need your opinion on something."

"does this opinion require me to get up?"

"Don't strain yourself, Captain Sloth. You can keep your lazy ass where it is."

"then sure. what'chya got, there?"

She plunked the globe right-side-up onto the countertop next to him. The 'snow' inside whisked around the red-clad figure and his sleigh before settling along the bottom of the glass. The skeleton's eye-lights fixed on it and his brows tipped up, waiting for an explanation.

"I bought it yesterday from that old guy in Waterfall, you know, for my work. What do you think?"

Sans blinked at it. "you took this with you today?"

"Yeah?"

"...to tell fortunes?"

"No, to wipe my ass," she sneered. His static grin twitched, and she couldn't tell if the sarcasm had struck home. She followed with a harsher, "Yes, to tell fortunes, you twat."

"did you...?" Sans couldn't finish, his voice cracking with something barely-restrained. He leaned away from the globe, his shoulders starting to shake as his grin stretched impossibly wide. "you...!" His words crumbled into snickers and he completely lost his composure, gripping the edge of the counter as he doubled over.

This reaction wasn't comforting, on several levels. She'd seen the guy crack jokes and chuckle along like nobody's business, but full-blown laughter was a step too lively for Sans, and it was bolstering her worry that she'd done something ridiculous. "What? The hell's so funny?"

Sans was seized by such a conniption that he staggered from his chair, gasping for breath. His eye-sockets were squeezed into a gleeful shape and she could nearly discern tears. Between peals of laughter he managed to belt out, "did you pull customers into your lap and-" another break to laugh, "ask if they've been good boys or girls?"

"What?"

He collapsed into his folded arms again, about to die. It was almost refreshing to see him so thoroughly entertained—Papyrus always seemed to be the blustery, indulgent one of the pair. She'd be sharing his delight if it weren't _at her expense_ , and her bewildered expression melted into a glower. "Okay, okay, laugh it the hell up. Obviously I fucked up, here."

Her grumpy tone seemed to tame him. He sucked in a few more breaths to cool down and rubbed his chest with one hand, as if massaging an ache. "oh god, i needed that. i really needed that. you don't even know."

"Hey asshole, you finished?"

A contented sigh, followed by a hiccup. "-urp. ahh. yeah, probably. no guarantees, though."

"Great. Want to tell me what this thing is?"

He drummed his fingers on the counter, looking thoughtful. "you should come over to our place again one night. papyrus can show you some movies. i promise it'll make sense then."

"Or you could promise to explain it to me right the fuck now?"

"heh. still no patience, y'know? that'll get ya one day." Lecture over, he waved at the globe. "it's _santa claus_."

Her mind turned over the foreign words, em-reading only able to register that it was a name of some kind. She shrugged brusquely. "The hell is that? Those words supposed to mean something to me?"

He blinked again, amazed. "you really aren't from this world, huh? i almost didn't believe ya, but..." He let the thought go. "look, it's kind of a thing for kids. makes it hard to take ya seriously."

"Apparently." That explained the pointing children and laughing teenagers. She threw her arms out in defeat. "So I just wasted fifty gold?"

His response was another round of long, deep chortles. She slammed her heel into the base of the booth, rattling its occupant. "Could you _please_ lay the fuck off with the laughing?"

Sans wiped one eye with his sleeve. "sorry, just... deciding whether or not to have mercy on you at grillby's tonight."

Her face flushed with more anger than mortification. "Don't you dare. Don't you _fucking_ dare."

Sans held out one hand, rubbing his finger-bones together. "heh, i could use some persuasion."

"You mother-fucking...!" She fished out another five-gold coin. "This is becoming extortion."

He took the money and shrugged. "eh, neither of us are important enough to call it that. i prefer good ol' blackmail."

She stormed away, leaving Sans with her lame crystal ball and flicking her tail behind her in a show of contempt. "Ugh, whatever. Either way, I'll see you in hell, asswipe."

"see ya, succubutt."

Hell turned out to be Grillby's, where appropriately enough, the proprietor was on fire. She settled at the opposite end of the bar from Malk and started her evening early with a pint of some beer she couldn't pronounce, watching the usual pack of dogs trickle in after their day-jobs. Trent the snow hare joined the bar by the time her mug was half-empty.

"So," Trent began, casting a long glance at the succubus as something mischievous split his lips around his buck teeth. "I heard something hilarious from my little niece today."

"Do tell," Malk urged him, and she already didn't like where this was going.

"She says her whole class ganged up to chase some bat-lady out of town. Maudy and Baudy were witnesses; said they saw 'er hauling butt down Main Street with an army of little suckers right on her tail. They ended up throwing enough snowballs at 'er to build an igloo."

"Bat lady, you say?" A grin pinched the base of Malk's beak. "Any kin of yours, whore? Or would that have to with the big ol' shiner under your eye, there?"

"What-" She pawed at her cheek, and winced at what felt like a bruise. "Oh, motherfucker," she cursed tiredly. She then stuck her chest with a thumb, getting demonstrative over the fact that, "And I'm a _dragon_ , not a bat. Little shits need to get their facts straight."

Malk and Trent shared a short, hearty laugh over her confession. "Sheesh, whore, you riled up a whole class of little-schoolers. How'd you even manage to piss off that many kids in one fell swoop?"

"Ugh, it doesn't matter." She was sorely-but-surely acclimatizing to getting the shame beat out of her. "I don't know why I hang the fuck around here."

Malk sat up straight and chirped, "Well! I'm glad you do, 'cause I've got a surprise for you." He reached for an empty glass jar on the far corner of the bar and dragged it into full view. It was half the size of a head and had a hand-written label taped onto the side. "That'll be one gold for that f-bomb, whore."

She squinted at the jar. "The fuck?"

"Two gold, now."

Trent hunched over, whickering through a cruel smile. "Oh my god, Malk! That's not fair."

"What the fuck isn't fair? Seriously, what is that? I swear to Mighty Motherfucking Odin, I'm too tired to put up with you guys' shit today."

"Haw!" Malk crowed. "I forgot you whores can't read. It's a swear jar. Do I need to explain the concept, bitch?"

Her flat, " _What_ ," carried across the pub, drawing looks from the dogs trying to build a tower out of biscuits.

"I'll take that as a yes. You see, I just called you a bitch. Since that's a swear word, it'll cost me, like so." Malk plucked a single coin from his pocket and deposited it in the jar with a cheerful _clink_. "Grillbz says for a flat 20g you can swear your little heart out, but only after ten o'clock. Else it's one gold a pop. We're tryin' to be a _family establishment_ , y'hear?"

Rudy arrived, sweeping the bar with a guffaw. "Haaah hah haaah, man, that's a good one. Gets me every time." The hamster sidled over to the jukebox and slipped in a coin, filling the pub with jaunty music.

 _'I regret ever using those words,'_ Grillby said.

"This is fucking ridiculous," the succubus raised her voice. "You can't charge me for _swearing_!"

Malk held his position, curling one feathered elbow around the base of the jar as he leaned back against the bar. "I believe we're up to five gold now, assuming that Odin-whatever is cursing wherever you come from."

She grit her teeth, seething. _They can't be serious._ She looked at Grillby, who remained unmoved, endorsing the entire charade with his silence. She treated the redbird to a glare that could melt steel as she dropped five gold into the jar.

"Heh, heh, heh! Always a pleasure doing business with ya, whore."

"I hope you rot in hell," she said.

"I'ma let that one go, just 'cause I like ya."

"Ugh." She sank onto her arms, resolved to shut up the rest of the night. Malk was only gracious enough to not engage her further while she polished off her beer. Trent and Rudy ordered a salad and burger to eat, respectively, and life in the pub crawled on.

Grillby was pouring her a refill when skeletal knuckles cracked against the counter-top, making her jump. "knock knock."

A collective groan from Trent and Malk underscored her resigned sigh. "Who's there?"

Sans crawled onto the bar-stool next to hers. "coal."

She glanced past him at Malk, who was shaking his head and complaining that it was "too early for this." She smirked, ready to play along if it meant annoying him. "Coal who?"

Sans grinned in that oh-too-obvious way when he was about to deliver a punchline, procured a fist-sized item from his coat pocket and planted it on the bar. "coal up santa claus to see if you're on the naughty list, heh heh."

She stared at the thing: a hand-crafted figurine of a red-clad man in a deer-drawn sleigh. It was the exact one inside that snow globe, extracted and polished dry somehow. Rudy followed her gaze with a quizzical look and said, "I don't... get it?"

A few bubbles of laughter was Sans's only explanation. She jabbed him in the shoulder. "You had all afternoon to think of a way to rub it in and _that's_ your best shot?"

"hey, that's going easy on ya. i thought of worse." As he said that, something cold and round nudged her side. She looked under the bar and found him passing her the rest of the globe. She took it back and turned it over, observing that the glass was now filled with nothing but water and glitter, and that its wooden base was perfectly sealed. _Wait, isn't this the glitter I bought with Papyrus? How the hell did he do this?_

She met his eyes and received a subtle wink. "magic." _As if that explains everything._

"Gee thanks, jackass," she said, tone lowered enough to almost sound sincere. She stuffed the globe into her cloak and knocked the Santa figure over with a listless swipe.

"Swear jar!" Malk called out.

She sharpened another venomous look and passed down one gold. Sans's eye-lights followed the coin into the jar, and he scoffed. "really, malk?"

"Well I was gonna write 'TIPS' instead, but our local whore inspired me," Malk justified it. "Not like any'a you would ever tip Grillby, anyway. Hard enough just to get you lugs to pay your tabs!"

"ya got me, there," Sans admitted with an easy shrug.

"Shouldn't 'whore' qualify for your asinine jar?" she snipped.

"Nah, that's a proper title. Or improper, in your case. One g for that ass-word, though."

Her claws sank into the wood of the bar as she leaned towards him like a pouncing lion. "Why, you-!"

 _'Don't. It's a real word,'_ Grillby interjected. "Tch, Grillby says you get a pass," Malk translated.

She settled down, still buzzing with anger and alcohol, and got comfortable with her company. Rez joined the gang after his long day of tossing ice ("I'm a frozen product transit engineer," he joked) and ordered a small slab of meat while Sans ordered onion rings.

"Bleh, those give me heart-burn," Rudy remarked of the latter. Malk snickered. "Sure you don't want the trap again, Sans?"

"nah, that's only good at the end of the week. gotta let it build up, heh."

She was unfortunate to witness the last time he ordered 'the trap,' when Malk explained that it was actually bits of food that had fallen through the kitchen's grease trap and stuck to the bottom. Deemed unfit for consumption by every other monster present—Grillby included—Sans reveled in their reactions as he ate an entire bowl of the foul, unidentifiable scrapings. "You're repulsive," was her sole comment at the time, and Cinny concurred that she had lost her appetite.

The fried onion rings Grillby brought out tonight were like a fresh garden salad in comparison, but still nothing the succubus considered safe to touch, much less ingest. She ordered plain potato fries and another beer, and watched Sans haggle over the leavings on Rez's plate while Trent ranted about something or someone called 'Gyftrot' that chased him off his paper route.

A beer and a half later, a debate ignited across the bar over who in the room could win a fight with a gorilla. While the rabbits and rodents immediately backed down, Rez and a hound by the name of Doggo got enthusiastic over the prospect.

"They're just bigger, hairier humans, right? I could take one!" Rez claimed.

"I bet the only real difference is that humans smell worse!" Doggo chimed in.

"You're both certifiably insane, and I would pay real money to watch a five-hundred pound ape stomp all over your stupid fat heads," Malk told them both.

"Yeah, ain't none'a you watched King Kong? Guy could knock fighter planes outta the sky like they were flies," Rudy stated.

"King Kong was ten stories tall, pickle-brain. He's not a regular gorilla," Malk corrected him, as well.

"Bah, you guys are a bunch of wimps," Doggo determined, and he pulled Rez away by the arm. "Com'on pal, play some poker with us at the manly table." The canine cousin accepted the invitation, making the dogs' table a little rowdier and the bar a little quieter.

The succubus realized that somebody next to her had been particularly quiet, and she stretched out a leg to kick him in the shin. "You alive over there?"

Sans hiccupped, "i'm-erp! ...good."

It was a pretty weak answer, and her em-reading picked up the tell-tale hum of a lie. She also didn't miss his hands furtively burying themselves in his coat pockets as he drooped in his seat. Curiosity (and magic) emboldened by drinking, she used her tail to discreetly reach around and lick his back with her shade. Right away it registered a swath of pain that let her read the problem perfectly: he had a stomach-ache.

She rolled her eyes, not surprised. The idiot ate like a garbage disposal—what did he expect? He then looked up, and for a heartbeat she thought she'd been caught prying, until he called out, "hey grillbz, let me have some ketchup."

 _'We're running low on that. Your fault, largely.'_

He gave a strained laugh. "cuz i've got a large appetite, heh. com'on, i'll replace it."

 _'I doubt that, but here you go.'_

She fuzzily wondered how some monsters could understand Grillby's speech and not others, but lost that train of thought once she watched Sans take a red bottle from the barkeep, unscrew the cap and guzzle half of the contents right in front of her. "phew, that's better," he huffed, like it was some kind of medicine.

She failed to unwind the appalled look on her face. "For fuck's sake—you know what? I'm saying something."

Malk barked, "Swear jar!"

She fiercely hurled a handful of coins over the bar, letting them scatter across the floor and shelves of bottles with a cathartic string of _pings_. Half a dozen sets of canine ears pricked at the sound, and Ruby and Trent recoiled from her with crossed expressions of sadistic excitement and fear. While Malk and Grillby were still ducking for cover (and trying to count whether that made twenty gold), she whirled to face Sans. "Okay buckle up, dumbass, because here we go."

Before Sans could utter a word, she began. "For starters, your brother is right. Your diet is freaking terrible. Somewhere tonight a hobo is picking through a dumpster outside a fish market and getting a better-rounded meal than you have eaten in the past two weeks. Grease is not a fucking food group, nor is ketchup a beverage. Grillby has an entire menu full of almost-edible shit-"

 _'Hey,'_ the barkeep mildly objected.

"-and you consistently scrape the bottom of that goddamn barrel for sustenance, picking items barely fit to throw down to hogs for slop, and then washing it all down with the dregs of tomatoes. _Are you a child?_ I could still convince a five-year-old to eat a fucking piece of broccoli for supper, and the color green is anathema to kids.

"Secondly, for once in his fat-headed bumble-fucking life, Malk is right about something: you need to chew your fucking food. You're not a goddamn king cobra. I realize that watching your lip-less pie-hole masticating-"

Malk exploded into snickers, and she held a sharp finger to his face without turning around to give Sans a chance to escape. "NOT what that word means. Look it up, dick-stain." She then finished her thought. "-that it would be beyond repulsive, but if it saves you from bellyaching later, it'll be worth it. And finally, for the love of every god in the espers' pantheon, stop it, right now."

Sans absorbed the harangue with a wide, frozen look that read across their fickle link as anxious confusion. _God forbid he be EMBARASSED by anything at all, ever,_ she thought scathingly, and to her shock she felt a dark pulse of shame across the link, as if in response.

On the outside, however, he just looked defensive. "what? i'm not even doing anything."

"Stop _smiling_ , gaylord. You're allowed to NOT smile when you don't feel good. That is a thing. Grillby, please tell him."

 _'I don't have a face.'_ His reminder was met with a glare from the succubus. _'...But she's not wrong,'_ Grillby acquiesced.

The short skeleton shifted on the spot, evading her look. The only emotion transmitted from the link was something dark and subdued, unreadable. "heh, can't help it, y'know. force of habit."

 _You do that for Papyrus, don't you?_ She nearly asked that aloud, before she remembered to stop caring about her mark's personal life—for that matter, she needed to stop chastising him, as well. She slapped the counter, tapping out. "Fuckin' whatever, I'm done."

The music from the jukebox picked that timely moment to die down. Malk finished collecting the strewn coins and deposited them in the jar while Grillby set down the glass he was cleaning and began a slow applause. Sans, oblivious to a fault, simply shrugged. He shuffled to the floor and passed a look to Grillby, keeping his back turned to her. "heh... i'm gonna jet. thanks for the fix, grillbz." He then walked out.

 _Nothing but cold shoulder._ "Why do I bother?" she asked aloud.

 _'He's very stubborn,'_ Grillby remarked. _'...But trust me, he heard you.'_

"I missed something," Rez realized as he reclaimed his seat at the bar.

Malk chuckled. "Holy shit, did you ever. Whore really let Sans have it." Ruby whistled a low note and nodded.

Taking the lull in conversation as an opportunity, the redbird scooted closer to her. "So, whore... I believe we have a mutual friend. Goes by the name'a Marcus. Sound familiar?"

Trent's ear ticked. "Sheesh, that guy's so slimy. And not in a good, monsterly way, y'know? Heheh, Baudy said he was passed out on their couch this morning, like a 'big hairy boulder'."

She recalled the fedora-wearing bear and groaned into her hands. _Fucking tiny-ass gossipy town, where everybody knows how often everybody else wipes their ass._

"Yeah," Malk confirmed, "Marcus says that's because you and him had a real good time last night, if y'know what I mean. It just begs the question: how much?"

She picked up her chin enough to glare at him, rolled away a look of disgust and took another long sip from her mug. "You can't afford it, bucko."

Malk harrumphed. "Well damn, I sure as hell know _Sans_ can't afford it, and you two been bumpin' uglies since you got here."

The succubus spit out her beer. A short plume of flame fell out of Grillby like a sigh, and he passed her a dish rag. "Ugh, sorry," she said as she mopped up her mess, and Malk waited for her composure to come back enough to upbraid him. "Goddamnit, for one, I don't _fuck_ people. We've been over this. If I have to explain it again, I'll be beating your thick feathery head into a paste so fine Grillby will never be able to clean it off the bar."

 _'Please take any paste-making outside,'_ Grillby quietly said.

"For two, my business with Sans is none of yours, so don't get any stupid ideas about what he and I have been up to." Her gaze drifted as she remembered that first night she marked him, her addled brain beginning to volunteer more information than necessary. "...And three, there's not even anything ugly to bump. It's all bones down there, for your information. That would be—that's just gross. Everything about your sentence was disgusting."

"Eh heh? So you're just _boning_ him, then."

"I fucking hate you."

Malk leaned back and rubbed a false ache in his neck. "Yeah, that one hurt me a little, too."

 _The fucking nerve of that guy_ , she brooded as she drained her last mug of beer. The brunt of the alcohol was starting to kick back, giving her dizzy notions that teased her anger into bad ideas. The last time she felt this drunk, she woke up on the brink of tentacle porn. That wasn't the kind of night she wanted to relive, so she tried to temper herself with quasi-fantasies of revenge.

 _Fucking Malk and his stupid bird face and stupid swear jar, got the gall to say I've been banging Sans, like that chucklefuck means anything to me. I swear to shit I can prove he don't. I got those rules for a reason. He doesn't get the RULES, the dumb fuck. I could just..._

Grillby walked past to tend some tables, and the swirl of bleary orange light captivated her for a moment. _I could... fuck. What was I thinking about? Fucking Malk. Or NOT fucking Malk, hah. I could mark everyone in this frozen fucking wasteland EXCEPT Malk. Make a conquest out of it. See what he thinks of that. Nosy prick._

"Heh!" she coughed, drawing puzzled glances from each side. Mark the whole town? Yeah, that was the plan. It would not only single the redbird out for a snub, but prove that there wasn't anything special going on between her and Sans.

...or it would just make her an actual whore, whatever—beer logic said it made perfect sense.

She shifted on her elbow to face the nearest patron and queried, "Rez, what are you doing tonight?"

The wolf gave her one tall, cautious look and then answered tactfully, "Uh... going home. To my wife, and children."

"Tch, pussy." Her appraising gaze fell on the snow hare, next. "You!"

Trent jumped in his seat as if he'd been shot. His slight, jittery figure flinched under the threat of eye contact, and she watched him nervously fiddle with the top button of his shirt. "M-Me?"

"Yeah, you. You look like a loser. What're you doing tonight?"


	19. Bonedoggle

Trent lived in one of those dome-shaped dwellings that spotted the northwest corner of town. It was part-burrow and part-igloo, and much more spacious on the inside than it appeared on the outside. She had followed him through a small battlefield of toys and bicycle parts to reach the front door, which she had to duck through to enter. From that point, the snow hare beckoned her across a warmly-lit den with a finger across his lips. The house was only as quiet as the whispering snores emanating from a row of darkened rooms—likely accommodating a family of twelve, if she knew anything about hares.

 _Ugh, this is a shitty idea already,_ she thought, trying to remember whether she had a rule about marking people in their parents' houses. When Trent quietly pried open the door to his own room, her bad idea got another visual aid.

"S-Sorry about the mess," the hare said as his over-sized feet took large strides around a toppled stack of paper boxes. She watched his toes never touch a clean spot of floor, every inch of it covered in either dirty laundry or loose paper. Clothes were spilling out of the closet at a rate that prevented the door from ever being closed again. Posters covering the walls were peeling at the corners, and depicted band logos and cartoon robots that she'd never recognize in her lifetime. A desk-shaped structure in one corner was covered with so much miscellany that she could barely pick out its wooden finish. Maybe there was a bed in the middle of the room, but the piles of cloth, coat hangers, bottles, tin cans and greasy boxes shored up against its sides concealed the frame—and, of course, the sheets weren't made.

There was even a stray shoe suspended from the ceiling fan by its laces (it looked eight sizes too small, to boot.) "This is a goddamn disaster zone," she reviled it. She wondered how anyone could accumulate so much _crap_ in their pathetic life, but then, she'd never had a bedroom of her own (or regular possessions) to trash, so she'd never know the opportunity.

For a heartbeat she compared this garbage dump to Sans's room. The key difference was that, for Sans, even acquiring junk was too much effort, which is why his room was messy in a disused, spartan way: empty save the bare essentials, a healthy layer of dust and enough paper rubbish to build a tumbleweed (It was also possible, she realized distantly, that the lack of care and decoration was another hallmark of the chronically depressed—but it wasn't her place to care about that, either.) Trent's room was more like a dragon's hoard, piled high with scavenged wealth—that is, if the dragon were less into gold and sapphires and more into, say, dirty magazines and socks.

The hare knotted his stubby fingers and chuckled nervously. "Y-Yeah, it's pretty bad. I don't get a lot of company, y'know? I don't think to clean it up much, except when Mother-"

She didn't give him a chance to elaborate. Her hand sank into his shoulder, claws nipping the thin fabric of his shirt and strangling his sentence without even going for the throat. She then pushed him backwards onto the bed. "Sit down."

It wasn't certain whether the sharp squeak came from the mattress springs or Trent as he flopped over them, but then the lagomorphic monster made his own, distinctly distressed noise when she crawled into his lap, her tail coiling around his thigh.

"Uhhhh y-you're serious, huh? Cutting right the chase? We shouldn't make a lot of noise, y'know. If Mother hears I have a guest-"

"I give exactly zero fucks about your mother, including change," she cut him off. She was going to ask how old he actually was, to be living so heavily under his mother's thumb, but she figured if he was old enough to be drinking, it was a moot point. She stopped when another rule broke through her drunken fog. "Wait, you can pay for this, right?"

Trent's expression melted into something mortified. "Um, do you mean money...? I'm only a little broke, but-"

"God DAMNIT." She drove his shoulders heavily into the bedsheets, leaning over Trent and baring her canines just two inches shy of his anxiously twitching nose. She was angrier at herself for going blindly into a job, but the struggling hare made a more appealing target. "Then you're going to owe me a favor," she ground out.

"F-Favor?"

"Yeah, do I have to explain the concept? At some point in the near future, when I call for you, you're going to have to do what I ask. You comprehend, you gaunt, floppy dick?"

Trent wobbled in some semblance of a nod. "S-Sure, no problem, just as long as we don't wake my moth-er...!"

The last note of his sentence was squeezed short as she dragged him upright by the collar, holding him over her head and grinning devilishly. "No promises."

Her shade hadn't spent five minutes getting carnally acquainted with the hare by the time he was making the worst sound she'd ever heard man or rabbit produce. It was a warbled, high-pitched moan that cracked her eardrums and made the mark a little hard to enjoy, despite the throes of pleasure. A small part of her found it hilarious, especially when both linked souls realized that the sudden hammering sound wasn't coming from the bed.

"Trenarious Bumbledarden!" a voice boomed through the door like a semi-truck. Her shade felt a cold flash as her mark wilted so fast she thought he'd crumble into dust on the spot.

"M-Mother! I...!"

"What did I tell you about playing that god-awful music so late at night? Some people are trying to frickin' sleep around here! For goodness's sake..." The sound of heavy, padded feet and creaking floorboards then carried away from the door, leaving them in peace.

Beneath her, Trent was gaping, too shocked to appreciate his turn of luck. "I... uh..."

" _Trenarious_?" she whispered at him, her features squished incredulously. "Seriously?"

The hare shook with a short, embarrassed laugh, fighting to catch his breath. "Y-Yeah... um." He turned up a crooked smile, expression washed with both relief and disappointment. "I guess that's it, h-huh? We can't... I mean..."

"Like hell we can't," she growled. She grabbed a tube sock and threaded it around the hare's head. He managed a clipped, "What the-" before the fabric filled his mouth and was tied into a knot, making a gag. "I always finish my marks," she declared, receiving a muffled noise of protest in return.

"So get ready for round two," she said, and then started again. If his saucer-wide eyes didn't say enough, across their link she felt Trent's soul thrash a beat of _elated terror._

The next morning, after she woke up wrapped in her cloak in a snow-covered yard she didn't recognize, squatting in a tool shed that smelled like a wet dog rolled in a rusty fireplace, she added ' _don't drink and mark'_ to her rules.

She shook off the indignity of last night and every horrible idea spawned from it, marched back to the inn, washed up and took to work at the northern docks, preferring to avoid prying skeletons for a day.

If there was one reward for her troubles, it happened that night at Grillby's, where she decided to take a back seat to enjoy her dinner in peace (and as far away from Malk's swear jar as possible.) Although the dogs playing poker at the next table obscured her view of the bar, she could barely hide a crafty smile when Trent arrived.

"Well, well, well," the redbird accosted him. "If it isn't Trent Casanova, back from his escapade with the whore. Details, my fuzzy friend."

"H-Hey! Uh, I mean..." She glimpsed the hare glancing around the pub, and she neatly avoided his gaze once he realized she was there.

"Relax, she's all the way over there. She can't possibly hear us."

 _Haaaah hah_ , her mind crowed over her em-reading. She smugly sipped from her bowl of soup and eavesdropped.

"So com'on, man, tell us what happened. Did you get laid?"

Trent's response was the funniest thing she'd heard from these monsters since she arrived. "I'm... not sure."

"You _don't know?_ Listen pal, I know you're a little lacking in the experience department, but didn't your ma' ever give you the old _birds-and-bees_ talk? Or do I need to get a book from the library, one with pictures?" It was nice to hear that Malk's condescending tone wasn't specifically reserved for her, and that he talked to all his friends like shit.

"Hey! I'm not an idiot, man. I know all about that stuff, okay?"

"And yet you don't deny being a virgin..."

"Shut up! I mean, okay—I'll tell you what happened. We went to my room, and she told me to sit on the bed, and then we... did... something. I didn't touch her, though! I mean, she told me not to. Said it was a rule or something. I just sat back and let her go nuts."

"...What?"

"Yeah, and... eheh..." For a moment, she could only pick up sheepish notes from the hare. "I don't know what's up with that magic she used, but it felt _amazing_ , is all I can tell you."

"So..." Malk had difficulty processing this. "You can't tell whether or not you shagged her, but she did a thing to you, in your bed, that felt really good, and then she charged you for it."

"Uh..." Within that pause she detected him glossing over the favor he owed her. "Correct?"

Sarcasm didn't escape her em-reading, at least. "You are a fountain of information, Trent. I don't know why I bothered asking."

Rudy then arrived to join the gossip, but it wasn't yet time for the evening rush, so she made a plan to escape before the others showed up. She finished her bowl of soup, sauntered up to the bar, left Grillby one gold coin for a tip, and then leaned past Malk's inquisitive stare to drop another in the jar, buying a parting shot. "Have a nice evening, _bitches_."

She took the last word out the door and back to the inn, satisfied.

For the next several days it was business as usual. She would net a few customers from the docks one day, and then a few from Waterfall the next day, and every other night she'd take her earnings to Grillby's to buy a pint alongside her dinner. It was getting to be a comfortable routine, if there was one wrinkle in it: her first mark was noticeably absent.

Maybe she was just imagining things, but on the fourth night (after two pints), she thought to ask Grillby if Sans was avoiding her.

 _'He's been stopping by after you leave,'_ the barkeep informed her. _'Said he's been busy in the evenings with a project.'_ A _project_ sounded simultaneously unlike the lazy pile of bones she'd been acquainted with, and very familiar. It made her wonder how much of that excuse was valid. As Grillby walked away, he made a point to reiterate, _'I told you... he's stubborn.'_

She wasn't sure what to make of that, or whether or not to even be bothered, but on the pretense of being honest she make an extra stop in the woods after fortune-telling each day, to pay Sans his five-percent share. If he'd asked her why, she wouldn't be able to justify it; at this point, she didn't even care about the blackmail. She was more in the market for curiosity, now—she just wanted to see what he would say when he saw her.

It was never much, though. She'd drop some coins, receive a variant of "hey," and "thanks succubutt," and then she'd leave.

And, infuriatingly, he always saw her coming. Sans was good at spotting her approach from any direction, no matter how stealthily, and would stop her in her tracks with a glance or a word before she even got within throwing distance. For someone who seemed too lazy to care, it made him ironically adroit at his sentry job, and twice he even woke from a full-blown nap just to catch her.

She was pleased, then, the day she finally snuck up on him.

The afternoon was young, and it was roughly the hour she'd found him sleeping at his post the last time, so she pressed her luck by tip-toeing around the northern end of the path, prowling out of the woods. She saw Sans slouched over the counter-top, a fine film of snowflakes collected on the back of his jacket despite the booth's little roof. She slowly closed in, perfectly out of his line of sight.

And then she stopped, because something was... off. She was crouched a short snowball's toss behind him, right out in the open, already closer than she'd ever managed, and now close enough to notice two things: he wasn't asleep, and he hadn't discovered her yet. And that didn't add up. Given his track record and the fact that he wasn't snoozing on the job (for a change), the only explanation was that he was incredibly distracted. _By what?_

His foot was tapping in the snow—not slowly or idly, as one does when bored, but in a rapid tick. _Nervous, maybe?_ He sighed, shifted in his chair to lean on the other elbow, and resumed the foot-tapping. It didn't look like he was writing or working on anything, and when he sat up and sighed again, she didn't see anything in his hands.

He was _super fidgety_ , however, and she could discern sharp, flustered breaths as he dug his hands deep into his jacket, pawing through his own shirt at his ribs. When he stood up, she had a doe-like impulse to bolt away, lest she get caught—but he _still_ didn't notice her, which was amazing. Instead he stared at the booth's counter-top, brushing off the grit and frost and sizing it up for... something.

Then he put his weight on it, testing it once with his hands. And then his knee. And then he climbed all the way on and lay on his back, shuffling over the coarse wood in some vain attempt to get comfortable, if the frustrated groan she heard was any indication. He sat up, hugged himself, rolled half-way off the side and rubbed against one of the support beams like a bear trying to scratch a hard-to-reach itch.

After a long minute this, too, finished with an unsatisfied noise that she could only liken to a cow lowing in heat and _oh my fucking GOD-_

That's when she finally realized: he was distracted with _himself_.

She burst into laughter. Her brash voice shot across the clearing like a gong, and Sans snapped back into his chair comically fast. By the time she walked up to the booth, he was sitting with his usual wide eyes and simple smile and his fingers locked together on the counter, only an odd bead of sweat on his skull betraying anything amiss.

"oh. uh. 'sup?"

She had a moment where she considered turning the tables, letting him wallow in humiliation while she laughed and laughed—and then she started cackling at the mere thought. Her mien cracked in a fit of righteous hilarity, until she was clutching her ribs in pain and Sans looked _visibly annoyed_.

"uh, you okay? i don't remember saying anything funny."

"Ah, hahaha, ah..." she breathed hard to quell the laughter. "Sorry," she lied. "It is funny, though. There's only two kinds of people who fit your profile right now: junkies, or..."

He didn't seem to be in the mood for games, especially as she placed a hand on his back and drew her shade up his spine. "what—whoa!"

The reading was _hot_ , and as she pulled her hand up to her face and savored the tingling in her fingertips, she knew the problem for certain. "Gwaha, ha! You poor bastard. You've never been _horny_ before, have you?"

If anything, he looked partly offended at the invasion of privacy and partly frightened at the implications—and the rest was, well, still miserably aroused. Anger ticked across his brow before he dropped the look on the ground, abashed. He didn't have a joke for this situation. "um. ...no?"

He'd said before that he had no sexual history, and he must have been serious, but she'd barely considered the possibility that her mark was the first time he'd even... _Welp. I guess it's up to me to fix this._

She gave a committed sigh and motioned towards town. "Get up."

Sans blinked, not about to budge. "excuse you?"

"I said com'on, dumbass. We're going home, before you try something stupid. I'll show you a good trick."

With the reluctance of a schoolchild being ordered to detention, he tore himself away from the booth and followed her back to Snowdin. She wasn't dragging him by the hand like an angry mother but she might as well have been, the way he sulked across town with his hoodie pulled up, refusing to make eye contact. They finally entered the Skeleton residence, hoping to make it to his bedroom without a scene, but prepared for the worst.

The worst found them immediately, Papyrus sticking his head out of the kitchen to take stock of his brother and guest. "FORTUNE TELLER, HELLO! AND SANS? YOU'RE HOME EARLY. DID EVERYTHING GO ALL RIGHT AT WORK?"

Sans shuffled his feet awkwardly behind her and cleared his throat. "uh, yeah bro. everything's cool."

Papyrus listened for one whole second before stepping into the living room to look at them critically. He was wearing that silly cooking apron, diminishing his threatening stature, but was still able to aim a suspicious squint at Sans. "ARE YOU SURE? YOU LOOK STRANGE." His accusatory front dissolved into concern. "YOU'RE NOT UNWELL, ARE YOU? YOUR FACE IS FLUSHED."

She looked down at her mark, confused. Sans's face was as bone-white as a skeleton's could be. How the hell could Papyrus tell? _God damn brotherly observation,_ she thought.

Luckily, her mark thought fast. "uh, yeah. just feeling a little _femur_ ish, y'know?" He punctuated the bad joke with a wink. "gonna lie down for a bit, sleep it off."

Papyrus waved them off with a wooden spoon. "UGH, YOU'RE FINE. JUST KEEP THOSE PUNS AWAY FROM ME, IN CASE THEY'RE CONTAGIOUS. AND BE SURE TO WAKE UP FOR DINNER! I'M COOKING OUR FAVORITE STEW! IT'LL MAKE YOUR BONES FEEL BETTER IN NO TIME."

Behind him, smoke issued from the kitchen stove. Papyrus squeaked and went back to tend to it, discovering the other spoon he left on the range had caught fire. At the rate things in their kitchen went up in flames, she wondered if Papyrus would make a better pyromancer than a chef. She also didn't know what kind of stew would be a skeleton's "favorite," but it smelled like a sweaty horse's saddle with a dash of garlic.

With the younger brother now distracted, she set her hand on Sans's shoulder and steered him upstairs. "Get in your room. I'll be there in a second."

Away he went, footsteps quick but subdued. His quiet compliance spoke volumes, and a whiff of their link assured her that his aura was still humming with lust. She didn't know how to feel about being responsible for the sexual awakening of a skeleton. She settled for a mix between accomplished, mildly disgusted and vaguely guilty. While she relished anything that made Sans uncomfortable (considering how much shit he and his friends gave her on a consistent basis), she had to admit it was unfair, to expose him to those sensations and then just leave him to deal with the consequences on his own. For someone made merely of bones to have nothing of his own to simply _touch,_ to relieve the pressure—it was probably torture, like trying to scratch an itch through a plaster cast.

Not that Sans wasn't clever enough to come up with _something_ for that predicament, but it was better to steer him towards a healthy solution before he tried something... depraved. She knew a lot about sexual development (a lot more than she wanted to, damn her job) and recognized a ripe time to stop someone from developing a ketchup bottle fetish.

So, she was going to give him a little lesson in _exotic magic_.

At the top of the stairs a painting hanging on the wall caught her eye. It was a plain rendering of a single bone ( _Minimalistic, isn't it_?), but it inspired her. She tested the door to Papyrus's room, found it once again unlocked, and stole a look around. After a moment of rummaging she trotted downstairs, waving at the cook to grab his attention.

"Hey, Papyrus! I'm borrowing one of these."

Papyrus tossed a quick look at the item and did a double-take. "HEY! THAT'S A BONE FROM MY PERSONAL STASH. IT'S RUDE TO JUST TAKE ONE, YOU KNOW! YOU COULD ASK."

"It's for a good cause, believe me." She rolled the old, dusty bone around her wrist like a baton, appraising its sturdiness, and then started back up the stairs. Half-way there she stopped, turned around and peered back into the kitchen.

"Oh, and I say 'borrow' but..." She treated the worried skeleton to a skeevy grin. "...you're probably not going to want this back."

She let Papyrus wonder what that meant for the rest of the night.


	20. Exotic Magic

It was still funny, the way Sans sat on the edge of his mattress, toying with the zipper of his jacket and looking flustered. It was always fun to drag him out of his comfort zone, especially in the comfort of his own bed. There was something poetic about it, she thought.

She could smell something different about his aura since the first time, though. Beneath the same-old apprehension and fresh coat of _need_ , there was a backbone of curiosity that had been replaced with confidence. He knew what to expect here—or, he thought he did.

In fact, he'd grown so bold as to ask, "how's this going to work without your necklace? or did you never actually need it for this?"

"Observant little fucker, aren't you?" She shut down the question of her crystal charm by declaring, "Well your horny horsies, tiger, because I'm not marking you again."

Sans blinked and shifted back, as if she had literally pulled a rug out from under him. "uh, then what's the plan?"

"I'm going to do one better: I'll teach you exotic magic, so you can use it on yourself. You know the saying: _Teach a man to fish_ and blah blah, that kind of shit. Interested?"

He only seemed vexed by the proposition. "i don't fish, and that sounds like work."

"Sounds like you're going to have to get the fuck over that, lazy ass. I promise this'll be fun. Haven't I lived up to my promises so far?"

His expression dipped to show annoyance—he was getting impatient. "that's debatable. it's looking like i have this problem right now because of you."

She shrugged. "An unpredictable side-effect. Look, regardless of how this happened, you're going to have to learn to deal with it. Most kids just go to town with a box of tissues and some lotion, but..." She pointed a look down to his pants, where beneath she'd find nothing but a pelvic bone. "Obviously you're _under-equipped_ for the standard method, so exotic magic is your best bet. You monsters are made of magic, right?" Well, she remembered that Sans wasn't, exactly—not the same way the other monsters were. She wasn't about to say so and make it complicated, though. "This should be a piece of cake."

He sighed, resigned to it all. "if you say so." He then drilled a perplexed look to the instrument in her hand. "um, and the bone...?"

She hefted the borrowed femur and snickered. "We'll get to that part." She knelt down and grabbed him by the scruff of his jacket, holding him to attention. "Before we do anything, there's an oath. Exotic magic is a really, really fucking old practice, and there's a lot of law and tradition around it. I'll spare you the semantics, but you have to swear one thing: you never, _ever_ use this on other people without their consent. Consent is _really_ important, and if you fuck around with this kind of magic you're going to hurt someone, or even yourself. Got it?"

Sans managed a cheeky grin while performing a foreign gesture with his thumb. "cross my heart and hope to die."

"...I'm hoping to whatever god you pay respects to around here that means 'yes.' Let's move on." She dropped him, sat cross-legged on the bed so that they were facing one another, and then pulled both his hands into her lap. Their old link blazed to life at the mere touch, burning through her fingertips and flooding her aura with warm, itchy tension. The feeling matched the threadbare desperation pinching his face, and urged her to hurry up.

"Er, damn. You're _really_ ready, huh? I'll make it quick." She dug into the worn-out cabinets of her memory for every lecture on exotic magic she'd ever received. "In _natural cases_ —normal sex, basically—the organs would be stimulated physically, the pleasure would reverberate into the mind and spirit, the three would synchronize to produce ecstasy, and then there would be a release of energy. For some this energy can take the form of magic, hence the mantra:

 _Magic over spirit, over mind, over matter, over magic._

It all wraps around, you see. For exotic magic, it just goes in reverse: I scintillate the spirit, the body responds in kind, the mark climaxes, and sometimes I don't even have to lay hands on the guy." She paused, considering, "Or gal—to be fair, I've had some female clients."

"uh huh..." he said blandly, fighting to pay attention and not squirm on the spot. _Such a big baby, can barely hold it together for two minutes. At least he's trying to listen, I guess._ She suppressed the impulse to laugh in his face again.

"Fuck it, I'll just show you how it works." She placed the spare bone in his hand (the left one, the one he used for magic, like she remembered. Why did she have to remember that bit of trivia so well? It was a traumatic memory, she supposed.) "Hold this up."

He did. She then reinforced his grip with her own. "This bone is now your arm. It's not _like_ your arm or a _part_ of your arm; it's your arm. Take a second and get that in your head. Now, close your eyes."

He did that, too. "Okay, here's the fun part. _Your arm is now your magic._ That's how you gotta say it, in your head. Keep holding your arm up—yeah, like that—and make like you're going to use your magic. Any little old spell will do."

He cracked open a look of doubt. "this is gonna... do what?"

"This is going to fucking work, if you shut your mouth and just do it. You'll see."

His skeletal grin twitched as he squeezed his eyes shut, and a little rod of sheer magic conjured in the air between them. It took a second for her to realize it was in the shape of a bone.

"Huh. This your idea of a spell?"

"yeah? you asked for my magic."

"Yeah, but it's a dumb little bone."

"you want something bigger?"

"No, I want something that isn't stupid?"

"i'm a skeleton. it's kind of my thing? don't know if you've noticed."

"Trust me, bonehead, I did, but... well, whatever. Takes all kinds, I guess." She swiped her hand through the apparition, cutting it down with a tiny blade of her own wind magic. She then wrapped her fingers around the knuckles that clutched the spare bone and instructed, "Try that again."

A second try.

"You feel that?"

"no?"

"Try again. Use your arm to cast it. And keep those eyes closed."

A third.

"Feel it?"

"no..."

"Keep trying."

"i am?"

"Use your _arm_."

A fourth.

"still don't get it..."

"Use. Your. Fucking. Arm. What did I tell you about your arm?"

A fifth.

"Got it?"

"no."

"Again."

A sigh.

"Feel that?"

"n... oh. _oh_."

Sans finally grasped what was happening. She pulled away and let him reach for the spare bone with his other hand. His fingers traced the long shape as his eye-lights dimmed and his grin grew deep with an epiphany. "whoa. it feels like...?"

"Your arm. Like I said, right? It's called _magicorporeal transference_ , which is a mouthful, but you basically used your aura and magic to make that bone a part of you. When you cast a spell, it's your aura that's reaching out to funnel the magic, and when you do it in just the right way, your aura will latch onto materials in the spell's path. It's how magic wands are made, except that shit requires crazy materials and takes practically forever. Anyway, that's just a small taste of how spirit magic works."

She took the bone out of his grasp and he flinched, feeling the severed connection with his new-found limb. The spare bone balanced in the palm of her hand as she held it up for consideration. "Now, to make it _exotic_. Let's suppose you wanted to do that again, but using this bone for something besides an arm? Say, somewhere else on your body?"

"uh..." He looked himself over, taking stock of only four appendages, and then turned back to her, stumped. "like where?"

She grinned. After all, it wasn't every day she got to tell someone where to stick it—and mean it.

That's when she taught him how to... well, _bone_ himself, as Malk had (terribly) put it. For the purposes of self-discovery she didn't meddle with his aura this time, and just sat back and directed—showed him where to touch, what to grab, how to fold his legs to sit at a better angle...

"are you giving me a _leg up_?"

"Am I—goddamnit, that's your ONE JOKE. I'm clocking it."

"eheheh."

...and he caught on to the spirit magic quicker than she expected. She was prepared for the worst case of having to do everything for him, but Sans proved he could handle himself. He was actually quite good at it, she was loathe to admit, and had mastered a basic magical technique in a few minutes that she had to study for a week, back in her day. Whether he was an exceptionally quick study or it was a monster thing, she couldn't say.

Since she was detached from their link and her help was now brushed aside, she spent this time noticing how funny he looked in the throes of an orgasm. His fingers and toes curled into knots and low gulping sounds peeled from this throat as he rocked clumsily over the spare bone, like a dog trying to mount another dog and vomit at the same time.

The only thing funnier was the way his eyes flew open and he completely locked up when Papyrus banged on the door, only seconds after climax. She sniggered all the way to the door and cracked it open to snap at the interruption. "What? We're busy."

Papyrus fixed her with a blank, bemused look, his fist half-poised between knocks. It took him a handful of seconds to parse her abrupt tone and crude smile, and then another three seconds once he glanced over her shoulder and caught sight of his brother on the bed. Sans was still coming down, panting and sweating, that odd bone lodged awkwardly in his trousers—he looked abjectly ridiculous.

She bit her lip to stifle her laughter. Sans stared back with a wide, frozen look that was pure mortification. Papyrus looked more confused than amused.

"...WHAT. WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT BONE? WHY IS IT IN YOUR PANTS?"

"I said you weren't going to want it back," she unhelpfully supplied. "Was there a reason you came up?"

"ER... YES. THE STEW IS READY?" He shook his head at the diversion. "NO, WAIT, I REALLY WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE. AND WHY ARE YOU OUT OF BREATH?" He then looked to the succubus. "IS THIS THAT HOLISTIC MEDICINE I KEEP HEARING ABOUT?"

Amazingly, Sans recovered enough to offer a creaky, "more like bone-istic-"

"You _already had one_ ," she flared at him. "I didn't make that fucking rule for no reason."

"I'M SO CONFUSED, I THINK I GIVE UP," Papyrus conceded defeat. "JUST, UM, COME DOWNSTAIRS WHEN YOU'RE READY TO EAT? YES, THAT'S ALL." He showed himself out.

She waited for Sans to wilt into a little ball of shame, but to his credit (or not), he only focused on catching his breath and hitching himself back together. Meanwhile, she finally loosed the laughter she'd been choking on.

"You know..." she mused between fits, "After this and Trent's mother trying to barge in, I'm thinking I need a rule about doing this shit around the mark's family."

It took him an extra second to react to that. "...you did _what_ with trent's mom?"

The only explanation he received was more laughter.

Sans lobbed the spent bone into a dusty corner, stood up, wiped the sweat off his brow and pegged her with an aggravated look. "...'s not that funny, y'know."

She took a minute to settle down, and sighed. "Ahh... the hell it isn't. You and your brother are going to have a verrrrry interesting conversation over dinner after I leave."

"oh, you think you're leaving?" With speed that could only be supernatural, he appeared at her side in a blink, hard fingers clamped vice-like around her elbow. His rictus took on a sadistic tinge. "now _that's_ funny."

And that's how she got dragged to dinner. The conversation wasn't as interesting as she'd hoped. The stew was even worse, and she was pretty sure some of its components weren't edible. Not only did Sans not mind, but he seemed to revel both in the taste of his brother's cooking and her reaction to it. She wondered if their kitchen was where he built up the gastrointestinal tolerance for garbage that he liked to show off at Grillby's. Papyrus, at any rate, was delighted to have company, and he spent most of the meal bragging over the stew's recipe and how much work it took to acquire the ingredients. She didn't ask what "slugshroom broth" was, nor why one had to go to a farm to get it.

It was after Sans slurped down the last of his bowl (and she pretended to be full) that she was invited to watch a movie on their couch. Papyrus thought it was a stellar idea, and Sans seemed committed to... punishing her, or something. He had a weird way of going about it, she thought, unless _boring her to death_ was on the menu for the night.

Unlike the last movie night, where the older brother pitched lackluster suggestions and yielded to Papyrus's fancies, Sans had a very particular movie in mind. He proved he was serious by moving his inert self to take it off the shelf. Papyrus grabbed the tape and turned it over, objecting, "BUT IT'S NOT THAT TIME OF THE YEAR YET!"

"succubutt asked about it, though. she's never seen it, y'know?"

"Asked about what? I didn't ask shit," she interjected before whatever slander Sans cooked up got carried away.

Sans winked and guided her to a spot on the couch. "you'll see."

"OH YES, YOU SHALL! THIS IS A HOLIDAY CLASSIC! I HOPE YOU LIKE WARM, FUZZY FEELINGS AND GOOD CHEER," Papyrus warned her with a grin that would've been disarming from a non-skeleton. She instantly disliked where this was going.

It was another of those strange human movies, this one with a winter theme. Not long after the introduction (that she still couldn't hear or read, and nobody was volunteering commentary to fill her in), she was treated to the sight of a large man in a red coat, driving a sleigh through... the clouds? With deer, and a lot of jingling bells? The airborne sleigh coasted onto a shingled rooftop, and then the fat man leapt down the chimney, dragging a large burlap sack behind him.

Papyrus was padding his fingertips together in silent, giddy clapping, rapt with the scene. She recognized the visuals with a start, doubling over to point at the screen. "Wait, THAT'S that Santoss motherfucker?"

"IT'S SANTA! SAN-TA," Papyrus jumped to correct her, scandalized. He paddled the air with his large, gloved hands like a man drowning in disbelief. "OH MY GOSH, SANS, SHE DOESN'T KNOW WHO SANTA IS!"

"nope. that's why we're educating her."

"So _that's_ your game, you slimy douche?" she hissed at Sans. "To get me to watch some dumb human mythology just so I'll understand a shitty joke at my expense?"

"maybe," Sans admitted, sinking into his corner of the sofa with a shrug and ever-wide grin.

"MYTHOLOGY?" Papyrus shot her a gaping, affronted look reserved for people who punch babies. "FORTUNE TELLER, SURELY YOU KNOW SANTA! HE'S THE ONE WHO FLYS AROUND THE WORLD ON CHRISTMAS EVE AND BRINGS PRESENTS TO ALL THE GOOD BOYS AND GIRLS. DID YOU NEVER WONDER WHERE YOURS CAME FROM EVERY YEAR?" His eyes squeezed into two hard lines with a sudden, grim thought. "OR, WAIT... I DON'T SUPPOSE YOU GET A LOT OF COAL, DO YOU?"

There was a sound at her back like a bullfrog exploding. It was Sans, and he was going to die. His laughs were deep, loud, rich—and judging by Papyrus's expression, contagious. He noticed her scowl and covered his blooming grin with his hands, abashed. "NYEH. HEH! I WASN'T TRYING TO BE FUNNY, I'M SORRY!" He tipped a contrite look to his brother and informed her, "OH GOD, NOW THAT HE'S IN CONNIPTIONS HE WON'T STOP."

 _Goddamnit, I'm the joke again._ Expressly to put an end to the fit, she dropped her elbow on Sans's gut hard enough to wrench out a belch.

"BR-a _aaaaaaaaaaaaap_!" It shook the couch, and Papyrus tumbled to the floor. "UGH, SANS! YOUR GAS COULD STOP A TRAIN."

His brother's disgust only fanned his laughter, until it escalated into greasy hiccups. He clutched his sore midsection and rolled around on the cushions. "ahaha- _hic_ -! haha, oh god, somebody- _hic_ -stop me, please- _hiiiic_!"

She cast a look around for inspiration, and found a pillow wedged behind the couch. She yanked it free and pressed it over Sans's face with zero hesitation. The pillow gave a muffled squeak as the tiny body beneath it thrashed. After a beat Papyrus fell on her with an alarmed cry, yet she relented before the younger brother could tear her away.

Sans gasped, blinked dazedly at the ceiling, and then focused on the two bodies hovering over him. He couldn't lock eyes with her for two seconds before his comportment crumbled into cackles. "ahahaha- _hiiic_! ahahahahah-hic-ahaa!"

"God damn you little...!" She hoisted the pillow over her head, about to pummel him with it. From the corner of her eye she saw Papyrus grab the edge of the fluffy bludgeon and give her a _look_. She returned it, surprise dawning when she realized: it was the one and only time they were—or ever would be—in accord about anything.

Together they grabbed the pillow and pressed it down again. Sans _squealed_ , Papyrus was shaking with conflicted chuckles and she was laughing despite them both.

After half a minute she and Papyrus lifted the pillow again, and Sans started flailing, trying to surrender. "okayokaygod please, i'll—hic! i'll stop, i'm stopping! oh god, you guys-hic!"

The succubus smirked and turned the pillow over, inspecting the feathers leaking from some freshly-bitten holes. "I guess goose down isn't a cure for hiccups," she told Papyrus.

"NYEH HEH! THAT'S A SHAME. THAT JUST MEANS WE'LL HAVE TO TORTURE THEM OUT OF YOU SOME OTHER WAY, BROTHER."

Sans bent over the side of the couch and spit some feather-fluff onto the floor, utterly disheveled. "ugh... maybe next time. you guys are— _hic_ —killin' me."

Horseplay concluded for the evening, she gave him one final smack with the pillow and then settled down to finish the movie. It was a queer, jolly story with some moral about charity or forgiveness or paying your parking tickets on time—hell if she knew. Papyrus insisted on pointing out and gushing over the dramatic moments, even lending some tears to the finale ( _Skeletons can cry now, too?_ ) Sans had fallen dead asleep long before credits were rolling, and nobody in the room was shocked by this.

Overall, she decided the movie was better with the skeleton brothers' company, even if _Santa Claus_ never made any fucking sense.

Papyrus nudged his sibling awake, scolded him lightly for snoozing through the "best parts" again, and then shuffled away to tidy up the house. She flexed her arms and legs and yawned, bracing to get up and go... well, not _home_. That word hadn't meant anything to her for years. But she could certainly go to her bed at the inn. There was a question that had been nagging her since she arrived, though: why were these guys being so... nice? To her? The hospitality isn't unappreciated, just confusing. Did she look like a hard-luck case, or were they like this to everyone?

She lingered for a bit, the couch still too warm and comfortable to resist (funny, how she first thought it the worst piece of furniture ever contrived. Now she can't leave its embrace to save her life.) Sans had the same idea, idling half-melted off the edge of the sofa and waiting for the strength to go back to his room... maybe sometime next year.

He hadn't said anything, but there was still a link between them, teasing her shade through the tail he was sitting on (like a huge ass. She wondered if he even noticed, but she couldn't be bothered to ask him to move.) She only thought about how she'd been picking up latent signals from their link ever since the last time she marked him. It was tenuous, but most perceptible when emotions ran high on either end (such as when she was yelling his non-existent ears off at the bar), or when it was so quiet that the nuances of his aura were all she could hear... such as now.

She looked at him now, testing the link, and all she could feel was... calm, relaxed. That made sense (drowsy son of a bitch just woke up), but there was also something else, the same tone and color but not as simple as apathy—it was more like... agreement?

No, _acceptance_. He was looking back at her with a heavy sense of ease, like nothing was or ever will be wrong—no need to explain and no need to forgive—and she got the tacit message.

 _We're cool._

It was weird, she thought back on it as she walked to the inn.

 _This is what friendship must feel like._


	21. Something New

The next day she worked her post in Waterfall, and so did Sans. For a change, she wasn't irked by his company. He peppered her fortune-telling with _eight_ stupid jokes, all fired at long-range from his booth in the corner of the clearing, but otherwise was polite to her customers. At the end of his shift, he even invited her to pack up her earnings and go with him to Grillby's.

There was an unusually rowdy crowd at the pub, assaulting both her em-reading and her nostrils with heady food, drink and laughter. They practically had to shove their way to the bar, stepping around some monsters she hadn't even seen before.

Rudy was the first familiar face to greet them. "Hey, it's Mister Smiley and Miss Scowley."

She screwed up a grimace. "The fuck is that supposed to mean?"

The hamster cradled a mug of ale with one paw and drew a frame around his head with the other. "You know, your face, it's always got this scowl on it—like somebody pissed on your hot dog, turned it to a water sausage."

She gaped at him. Next to her, Sans tipped his gaze to the ceiling, looking inspired. Malk then caught her in his sights and called from the opposite end of the bar, "Hey, whore! Saddle up and join us. It's a celebration. Not the jump-out-of-a-cake kind, though, so put away the whipped cream and keep your whore pants on."

"Go fuck a duck~!" she tested a lyrical swear. Malk pointed at the jar, and she relinquished another gold coin. "God, I will never stop hating you." She panned a look around the cheery multitude. "You guys seem pretty damn jubilant. What's the occasion?"

Rez loomed over her, brandishing his own mug. "To the king!" he bellowed, and a chorus of happy mugs filled the air from the surrounding tables, the whole pub rallied to drink.

That seemed to be the best answer she was going to get, so she resigned to the first empty bar stool she could find. The second she put her weight on the seat, it emitted a flappy, sputtering sound, and she bounced back off.

"What the flying sh...!" She stifled the expletive before she owed another gold. Her elbow bumped Cinny, who was doing ear-stands on the bar, and the bun twirled to crack her a wild grin. "Oh my goodness! Somebody just let one rip, my dear."

Sans swiped a deflated rubber balloon from the seat and wagged it at her with a thick chuckle. "heh heh heh! the ol' whoopie cushion gag."

Ruby lit up, pointing at the toy. "Hahaha! About time Sans got you, too. That thing's a riot."

She dropped a _carefully annoyed_ look on the prankster. "You tetonic—er, butt crack. That was freaking cheap."

"eheheh," Sans caught on to her struggle. "was gonna say ass, weren't'chya?"

"Swear jar!" Malk called out, and she snapped a shocked look back at the duck. "I didn't even...!"

It took an extra two seconds for Sans to realize that he was the target. "aww crap, really? but i was just... com'on man, that's not even a real bad word."

Malk, ever the hard negotiator, sneered at Sans, "'Aww crap,' huh? It's two G, now."

"huh?" Sans cast a floundering look around the bar, dredging up an argument. "but, 'crap' isn't even..."

"Oh, it totally counts."

"no way. cinny?" Sans entreated the nearest witness.

Cinny tumbled upright, one ear held thoughtfully under her petite nose. "Umm... I don't know, it's a real grey area, that one. I've let my kids say crap."

Malk reported, "Grillbz says it counts."

 _'I didn't say anythin_ g,' the barkeep joined the debate, sticking his head out of the kitchen expressly to contribute. ' _I'm not complaining about the income, but this was all your big idea.'_

Sans turned a strained, dark look from Grillby to Malk. Even with their maturing link and everything she was learning about him, the emotion was still tough to discern—Sans liked to keep his feelings dim and muted, rather secretive—but at least his demeanor was now easier to read than when they first met. He handed the coin over, but as his arm brushed past her, she got a taste of something _seething_.

They settled at the bar and passed their orders to Grillby, letting the party go on. Once Malk's back was turned, Sans discreetly winked at her. It smelled like trouble. She wondered if she could tap into their link to glean a little more, but the pub was too boisterous to let her focus.

Seated to her left was a scale-less fish monster covered in stubble-like hair. Her gaze stuck to him like a barnacle as she wondered where he fit in with the animal kingdom, and whether he tasted good with vinegar and chips or on rye. _Sheesh, I must be hungry,_ she realized, and made a noise of relief when Grillby brought out a sandwich to eat.

"So, what's so special about the king?" She asked her surroundings between bites. "It's his birthday or something?"

Rez stepped in to explain, "King caught us another human. That's two down, five to go."

"I can't believe this plan's actually working," Rudy remarked.

Rez's broad, toothy grin cracked an inch above her face, throwing slobber into her eye and making her wince. "I know, it's awesome, right? I think His Majesty's really onto somethin'."

 _Another human?_ "Two down and five to go of what?" she asked.

Malk scoffed. "Bitch, we been over this. King's gonna round up enough human souls to bust the barrier."

"Malk, there's dogs right over there," Rez chided. "Watch the language, eh?"

"Yeah, Malk, swear jar!" Rudy hooted.

The duck brushed it off. "Aw, they can't hear me."

One table away, Doggo barked indignantly and pointed at his ears. "...Or, nevermind," Malk amended. "And shuddup, that don't apply to me. I'm the king of the swear jar! You just gotta do as I say and not as I... say, ya monkeys."

Rez rolled his eyes, exasperated. "Now you're racist against primates, too."

"Ya know what's also a primate, Rez? Humans. I could have you pegged for a dirty sympathizer, talkin' like that," Malk warned, brows wagging shrewdly.

She couldn't say she'd ever seen a werewolf blanch before. "Com'on man, you know I'm just foolin' around. That ain't cool."

"Also," she decided to cut in, "You didn't tell me you people were trying to break the barrier with _human souls_ , goddamn."

Malk shrugged. "Well, we're tellin' ya now. Happy?"

"Thanks," she deadpanned. That barrier must be some severe magic, she reasoned, to require human sacrifice to dissolve. The monsters had mentioned a war, which perhaps explained the extreme measure. She had also grown to understand how much more virile and resilient human souls (and bodies) were compared to these monsters, so that made some sense. If ritual sacrifice weren't already a blasé concept on her home world, she would find it all macabre as hell.

Rudy tapped the bar, musing, "Here's what I'm wondering, though: what's the king gonna do with all these souls in the meantime?"

"Uh, keep them?" Rez hazarded.

"Yeah, no joke, but where? How? You can't just stick a human soul in a bottle."

"Uh, you can't?"

" _Uh_ ," Rudy shot back, mocking him, "No, dumbass. Those things'll float right out. There ain't no lock-boxes you can just shove souls into."

"Some kinds of magic can hold 'em, though," the werewolf countered.

"So we got a magician just standing there, holding the souls in place indefinitely? That's not a logistical problem at all, nope."

Rez tipped his mug at the petulant hamster. "Com'on my friend, sarcasm ain't funny."

"No, seriously," Rudy pressed. "We're going to keep them all alive in the dungeons until it's time to rock and roll?"

"I think that's the plan, yes?" Rez tentatively agreed.

"Sheesh, that's messy. So then the royal guard has to feed them and clean their cells."

"That's worse than trying to hold them with non-stop magic?"

"No, but I mean don't humans make huge messes, excreting fluids and shit all the time? Gross."

"Swear jar!" Malk interrupted.

Rudy shuffled towards the jar, muttering, "Ah, nuts."

Rez watched him deposit one gold and kept his gaze fixed on the glass container, an idea brewing. "You sure about the bottle thing, though? I thought I read somethin', or heard somethin'..." He scratched the sharp slope of his brow. "I dunno. Like the royal scientist had something for that, or was working on it."

"I dunno why the king doesn't just absorb their souls now," Malk said. "Tha'd make a hell of a sight, at least."

Rudy whistled at a ponderous mental image. "Ho' boy, you're not kidding."

"Why?" the succubus had to ask. Four tense sets of eyes landed on her.

Malk shifted in place, looking uncomfortable on everyone's behalf. "Geez, you want to field this one, Rez?"

"Uhhhhh," the werewolf stalled. "It's just, y'know. A monster's only ever taken a human soul once before. It turned into a real sad story."

"It was why the king declared war on the humans, y'know," Rudy informed. "But hey, if a monster ever does it again, they'll probably become the most powerful thing in the underground, no joke."

"Uhhh, I see," she said, and didn't really. She wasn't sure if she wanted to delve into the sad and sordid history of the underground, after all, judging by everyone's reactions.

Cinny peeled away from the grim conversation with an effortless ear-cartwheel. She landed in front of a crumb-laden plate and tossed its owner a sweet grin. "Sansy, you're being quiet. Somethin' the matter?"

"nah, nothin' wrong. i'm good," the skeleton rumbled into the sleeves of his coat. He hadn't looked her direction, yet she picked up a fringe of telepathic static: that now-familiar string of half-garbled things meant to be said, but held back. It was more than her _em-reading_ could normally register, and she wondered if had to do with their link. She struggled to remember if the same phenomenon occurred with prior marks, but she didn't have many that she talked to on a regular basis. "i think i ate too much, heh. gonna fall asleep over here."

Malk decided to overhear, and chimed in, "You know, you're the only customer to make 'food coma' a legitimate phrase around here. You understand you're supposed to get energy from food, right? Not be put to sleep? How 'bout you get your sorry butt home, then, before you pass out on Grillby's perfectly good bar. Or I could tell Cinny to bust out the marker pens again. That was hilarious last time."

The bun rocked on its round backside, tittering. "Hehee, I only drew a few flowers around the eyes! You were adorable."

Sans suddenly appeared much more alert at the threat of decorative floral tattoos. "uh, nope. no thanks. i'll book it." He pulled his hood up (like a shield, as if the pens were already out and poised to doodle) and then slid down from the bar, walking out.

Malk shrugged after him. "When he ain't eatin', he's sleepin'. Takes real talent to be that lazy, lemme tell ya. Real gem of monster society, that guy." He quacked behind his shoulder, "Grillby! Put another on skeledumb's tab."

"I just wanted to play..." Cinny lamented. She then flipped towards the succubus. "Oh well! Darlin', I hear you tell people's fortunes. I'm so intrigued! Could you do a little bun a reading?"

Put on the spot, she smiled a notch. "Ah, sure? I could do one on the house, just for you."

"Aww, you're a doll! I'd love it." The bun was so giddy she jumped right into the succubus's lap, like a big, jittery cotton ball.

She indulged Cinny with the reading, although she didn't learn any great truths from her spirit, apart from the fact that she was tipsy with several of them. She told the fluff monster that one of her kids would get caught licking toad-bottoms (she didn't need to be psychic; she just happened to witness a familiar-looking bun-bun doing exactly that three days ago, as she worked behind the docks) and the novelty of that revelation was enough to impress Rez, as well. He demanded a reading next. She rather had fun with both of them, and even Rudy and Malk found their reactions to her craft outrageous. She spent another hour (or maybe two? Ale had the remarkable ability to blur time) with their company, and it was... well, maybe not great—but she didn't hate it. It was kind of good, really.

She thought that was really weird, too, and started to berate herself during her walk back to the inn. She was dangerously close to getting comfortable with her lot here: these people, these places, this routine she'd built. It was a slippery slope to getting complacent, and if that happened she would never escape this world.

And it was important, escaping. That was the mission. That was why...

Why...

 _What the fuck?_

She trailed off in the middle of the street, distracted by a tall, familiar shape probing around the gutters with a stiff hand over his brow, like an explorer looking for buried treasure. She closed the fifty feet between them, calling out, "Papyrus?"

The skeleton hopped to attention, pivoting in the snow so quickly he nearly fell over. "THAT'S ME! OH?" His expression shifted once he recognized her—he looked both disappointed and relieved. "HELLO, FORTUNE TELLER. WISH I COULD CHAT. I'M A LITTLE PREOCCUPIED AT THE MOMENT." He resumed dipping behind bushes and walking around the landscaped conifers with the particular drive of someone who's lost something, such as a set of keys or a small animal.

"Yeah, I can tell. You looking for something?"

"NOT QUITE SOME THING, JUST..." He stopped and looked at her again. "DID YOU JUST COME OUT OF GRILLBY'S? WAS SANS THERE? I LOOKED IN THERE EARLIER, BUT THERE WERE TOO MANY DOGS. MY BONE-Y SENSE WAS TINGLING, NYEH."

...Or someone looking for a small person. "Sans? He left, like, a couple of hours ago. Said he was going to sleep or something."

"REALLY?" Papyrus cupped his chin, skeptical. "THAT'S AN INTERESTING THING TO SAY, CONSIDERING HE NEVER CAME HOME."

"Are you kidding?"

"I KID NOT. AT A TIME LIKE THIS I DON'T EVEN JEST! I JUST WISH I KNEW WHERE HE WAS. IF HE'S NOT AT THAT PUB, WHERE COULD HE BE OFF TO SO LATE?"

"Hell if I know. Maybe he's working on that project again, like Grillby said."

"PROJECT?" At this, Papyrus looked doubly perplexed. "MY BROTHER ISN'T WORKING ON ANY PROJECT. WE'VE BEEN WATCHING TV TOGETHER AFTER WORK EVERY DAY. IT'S SHARK WEEK, YOU KNOW. MONSTERS LOVE SHARKS!"

"Really?" _That little shit's been lying._ To Grillby, no less. Somehow, that part annoyed her the most—she kind of respected the elemental. "Tell you what, I'll go hunt him down for you."

Papyrus brightened immediately, eye-sockets threatening to glisten at the sudden charity. "TRULY? YOU'D DO THAT FOR ME?"

"Yeah, just..." _Wait, why am I volunteering to do this? Is it impossible to say no to Papyrus? It's like his goddamn super-power._ "Give me a minute. I've got a fair idea where he went."

It was going to take more than a minute to walk all the way to where she suspected, but if she was correct, Papyrus didn't need to worry. The woods outside town were especially quiescent, peaked trees slumbering under a blanket of soft powder that smothered outside interference, like a frozen, wooded womb. It would've been a miserable night to go stomping through the ice if the weather were any different, but as it was the air instilled her with a tranquil feeling, rather than empty or haunted.

It was still spooky enough, on account of being dark and deserted. The sentry booths leading out into the thickets were unmanned at this late hour, and once she was deep in the woods only one monster crossed her path: a great elk-like creature with a muzzle split the wrong way, bizarrely festooned with bells and trinkets around its antlers. It shook its ornaments at her in a disgruntled fashion and she walked around it, not even sure what to say.

It was a lucky turn to get away from that thing, because right after she found tracks in the snow. The way they appeared so suddenly out of nowhere was disconcerting, but nothing weirder than what she'd come to expect from her mark.

And then she found him, at the very spot she'd staked him out last time. He was sitting on a smooth rock overlooking the creek, facing away into the rows of undisturbed pines.

"You know," she huffed as she adjusted her cloak and picked out her own rock. "You can be one tough son of a bitch to find, when you set out to be."

Sans gave her only a peripheral look, expression on his skull blank and flinty—appearing, for once, like a dead person. "huh, could be because i don't want to be found."

She smirked. "No shit? Too bad I'm terrible at taking hints."

"what do you want?"

She started, smirk sinking into a frown. He sounded cold, not like anything she'd heard from him before. "The fuck's your deal? You lied to everybody and then walked the hell out."

His tone was nothing but scathing. "i guess if i'm going to get lectured on lying, i should take it from a pro."

She didn't get it; he had been in a good mood all day, and now he was being a complete shithead. Two could play this game, though, and when it came to flinging insults, she was a damn champion. Her frown turned into a scowl, a caustic reflex taking over. "Okay, that's right into 'fuck you' territory. You want to talk shit about my fortune-telling, how 'bout you get a real goddamn job first, instead of weighing down the world's biggest, most pointless snooze-stand. A fucking rock could take your place and be just as effective, if not easier on the eyes, you lazy freaking uggo."

"really?" If nothing, her outburst whipped some life into him. "you think _i'm_ an ugly freak with a pointless job? you have sex with people without letting them touch you. i'm thinking you've got some real problems with intimacy."

"Oh, I'm DYING to hear about my intimacy problems from a virgin who thinks ketchup is an applicable cologne."

He blinked, looking struck. "com'on, that's just plain wasteful. skeletons don't even have noses."

"Really?" _Of course_ , he was bothered by the ketchup part. "You're goddamn absurd. Besides, from the way your brother's complained about the smell of your laundry, I beg to differ."

The mere mention of Papyrus tempered him, his shoulders slumping and the creases around his eye-sockets softening. Something diffident blushed across their link, and he tore his gaze away from her and sighed, taking a break from acting out.

She took advantage of the lull to ask, "Seriously, what is your problem? I thought we were cool."

"i just think it's funny, is all."

"You think everything's funny. Life's a big fuckin' joke to you, ain't it?"

He shrugged. "what can i say? comedies are my favorite."

As he said that, her em-reading buzzed again and she almost heard something across their link—some attempt to be snarky and get her bile up, to keep the anger flowing. However, it clashed with an equally powerful urge to make a joke, to smooth everything over, and for a moment everything sank into the inky mire of apathy. It muddled her thoughts and took all the punch out of whatever she was going to say next.

The woods were very quiet. She could hear her own pulse—and that strange, _friendly_ color from last night, blooming again in the dark.

Sans lowered his voice, as if not to break nature's spell on the place. "...you know what, though? my brother loves romance movies. he's all about the main character doing something heroic to win the girl. some of 'em have a sex scene after, you know—which papyrus doesn't care as much about, and he tries to fast-forward over those parts. says they're bad taste. it's not like you see a lot, though, because there's always a big sheet, or the room's too dark, or the camera's upside-down or something, and they always call it 'making love.' i guess because censorship. but it's supposed to be poetic, ain't it?"

Now she was officially lost. "The fuck are you on about?"

He levelled a finger at her, honing in on a point. "yeah, that's what you call it—fucking. it's a pretty blunt word. takes all the love out of it."

A sardonic sneer tugged at her ear. "Hate to break it to ya, Captain Sap, but sex ain't like the movies. There's no flowery background music, somebody always farts, the sheet is usually in the goddamn way, and it needs to be washed the next day no matter how careful you are. It's just sweaty, messy, noisy and weird."

The grin returning to his face looked fascinated. "that sounds kind of fun, actually. well, funny to watch, at least."

"Oh, it can be a fuckin' riot. Nobody escapes looking stupid in the act."

"is that why you made it your job?"

She snorted humorlessly. "What, for the comedy? I guess if my life's already a joke, why the hell not?" He didn't have a come-back to that, and she forced a sigh through her nose, sobering up. "It wasn't my first pick. It's just a skillset I use to get by."

"what do you really want to do, then? with your life and stuff." It was weird for Sans to simply... ask her questions, all frank and without japes. As refreshing as it was, she felt like she was being set up for a joke—yet a part of her she couldn't repress considered it honestly.

 _I was going to become a Peacekeeper, part of C'tarot's elite frontier guard. It's what most half-dragons are destined to do. It was everything I was trained to become since I was born._ "I never really had a choice in that." _Until I fucked it up, by caring too much_. "I mean... I did make a choice, once. I've been running ever since."

"was that choice the reason you made rules preventing you from getting close to anyone?"

She gaped at him, conflicting objections of surprise and anger stymied to silence.

The smile on his face drew deep as his brow lowered, knowing he'd struck home. "heh. conversations like these aren't very fun, are they?"

...and there was the punchline. It sure wasn't funny, and he had to have done it just to get back at her for... well, a lot of things, including ripping him a new one in front of his bar buddies. On some level she probably deserved it.

"You're an ass," she snipped. "...But I see your point. I guess we're both kinda fucked-up."

His acquiescing smirk was the closest he'd get to admitting it, too.

She took her turn at looking out into the bleak trees. She was supposed to hate this place and everything about it, especially her job, but her mark wasn't making it easy. The notion of being trapped underground with monsters for the rest of her life wasn't plucking the desperate chord it should have. It was only making her... well, depressed.

When they met, Sans said she had no idea. She was getting a sickening idea of what he meant, now. "Well, since you're such an expert on the subject, I gotta ask: how do you cope? How do you _fucking deal_ with it all, day by day?"

He actually looked thoughtful for a second, before his grin turned cheeky. "i like food. eating always cheers me up."

She scoffed. "I'd rather stay in shape, but thanks for the tip."

He pat his belly, hand making a satisfying sound against the false flesh. "round is a shape."

She stared at him, trying to look stern. It didn't work; he kept smiling. A bright tremor flashed across their link, and her lips buckled into a thin smile. Sans shook a little, low chuckles taking root in him, and then she just started laughing—there was no other recourse.

"Ah... haha, hahahaha! God damn it!" And she kept laughing, flopping backwards onto a bed of pine needles and frost. After a moment Sans crawled down to her level, drinking her mirth through crescent-eyes and snickers.

She was an idiot. Everyone here was. "Ah... I hate you," she sighed.

"i know."

They lay on their backs and stared into the void-eaten canopy for a moment. She mulled over what to do with the rest of her night, and whether it was worth dragging Sans into it.

"Well... talking about my past sucks, and I won't pretend to know what you've been through, either... but I know a way to take the edge off." She grinned again, tipping off a double entendre. "Up for another therapy session?"

He rolled a look away, and she caught a whiff of contempt. "if that's what you're after, why don't you ask your pal trent? or marcus?"

"Who-?" She climbed onto her elbow to squint at him, realization slapping her in the face. "Wait, that fucking bear? Oh my stupid gods, you _were_ jealous!"

"psh, no," he sputtered petulantly, wriggling on the ground like a stuck grub.

"You are such an immature fuck-end. If I wanted to play with Mr. Sheds-a-Lot, I'd ask him, already. But I'm asking you, aren't I?"

His eyes flicked to her breast, where her necklace was still conspicuously absent. "it's not for work," he astutely observed. "what are you getting out of it?"

She leaned back, flipping a lock of hair over her shoulder as she considered it. "It's true, I never work for free. Rule number... five? Yes, five. I don't always take money, though."

"heh, that's good, because my purse is _bone_ -dry. so what's in it for you?"

"God, you're a cynical bastard."

"speak for yourself, succubutt."

"'Takes one to know one,' is it? But hey, you should have a little more faith in me. After everything I did for you yesterday, too..." she cajoled.

Sans brought a strong look back around to her. "well _you_ said I'm a 'hideous mutant chode,' so i gotta take what you're offering with a grain of salt."

She frowned, almost regretting those words (that he had committed them to memory showed how much he took the insult to heart), but she was on the 'cute' defensive at the time, so she wouldn't take them back. "Touché, asshole. Let me think... what am I getting out of this? I'm bored, _you amuse me_ , I want you to sleep in tomorrow and piss your brother off..."

"eheh, heh, you'll just get talked into working my post again."

"Nah, fuck that. We'll both sleep in. It'll be the best thing to happen since I got here, pathetic as that is."

"and papyrus?"

She treated him to a sly grin. "I can cover that."

The look he shot her was purely incredulous. She could only take umbrage at it.

"What? You don't think I could have possibly bought a favor off somebody in the time I've been down here? I can be a goddamn people person, if I have to. I got a connection." _There's a gullible little snow hare who motherfucking owes me one, and it's about time to collect._

"heh," he relented, "if you say so. only if papyrus says it's cool, though. no need to rattle his bones on my account."

"A bit late for that, chuckles. He sent me out here to find you."

"ah, damn." He pulled himself up and scratched his head, suddenly guilty. "i guess it is kinda late. he wasn't too worried, was he?"

"Tch, he'll live. Not like he's about to have a heart attack, having no heart and all." The strangely considerate way he asked struck her with a recurring thought. "Is he really your brother?"

Sans was taken aback. "as much as anybody can be. we came from the same person. what makes you ask that?"

"Nothing, just..." She shrugged. "I read both your souls, and they're completely different. Like night and day, really. I've suspected you two aren't actually related."

"you can tell a lot about people by their souls, can'chya? must make you real good at that fortune-teller racket." He tilted a curious look at her. "so, what does mine say about me?"

"You..." She reached over and fondled the hem of his coat, her shade nibbling the shell of his aura. "Well, you've already heard my spiel about you. If you really want me to read your _fortune_ , though... that's a different story."

A lascivious grin crossed her features, and he returned it in kind. "i dunno, you're kinda _psyche_ -ing me out. you gotta go easy on a poor skeleton; i can't afford to lose my _nerves_. maybe if you asked to- _marrow_ , it'd be _snow_ problem, but it's pretty cold out here, y'know?"

She rubbed the bridge of her nose, not having any of it. "God, no."

"heheh. who am i kidding? your funny bone's numb to my charms. but hey, i know a short-cut to my room."

"Mighty tempting, but at least let me walk you back, so it looks like I did something."

"heh, fair enough."

She got up and yanked his slothful bones to his feet, and the pair paced through the peace-stricken woods for several minutes.

"So, to be nosy... what was it that got you out here?" she asked at length, the overhanging branches gobbling up her echoes.

"just needed to think."

She snickered. "You? Thinking? That sounds dangerous. Sure you're not up to something?"

"heh, little old me? never." Sans then stopped, appeared to scrutinize a pile of foliage nearby, and then dragged her further up the trail before stopping again. Was he worried about the bushes spying on them or something? _What the fuck?_

"listen..." he said quietly, "as hard as it is to believe, i know what you're going through. that's why i..." He hesitated, turning a pensive look into the dirt. One hand slipped under his jacket to scratch his sternum. "just remember what i said, about being half-human. don't ever let anybody catch on. this is a more dangerous place for you than realize."

She didn't know how to handle the sudden gravitas. "Uh... okay. Thanks, I think."

Fortunately for her, it dissipated as quickly as it appeared. "i'm just telling you because..." He shrugged. "well, because i like ya, is all."

She shifted backwards, reeling from the thought. "Me? Why? I'm a bitch. I'm especially bitchy so people _don't_ like me. This _being nice to me_ stuff is really throwing me off."

Sans flattened a wry look. "believe me, we noticed." He then lifted an expression of... hell, she'd almost call it _hope_. "you're something new, though. that means a lot down here. same reason grillby, malk and the guys like you, too."

"Bull and shit. Malk doesn't like anyone, far as I can tell."

"sure he does. he's a lot like grillby, actually." He started down the trail again, passing her an encouraging smack on the arm. "Trust me, if he didn't like you, he wouldn't talk to you at all."

She followed, shaking her head in wonder. "...You are a weird, weird people."

"heh, must be why you fit in so well."

"Oh shut up."


	22. Made to be Broken

**Note: If you're looking to avoid smut, THIS IS THE CHAPTER TO SKIP.**

* * *

She enacted operation "Get a Damn Day Off" right away. Sans could hardly refuse such an ambitious endeavor. They split the job: the skeleton went ahead to talk to his brother, while she went to secure a favor.

 _There's a gullible little snow hare who motherfucking owes me one, and it's about time to collect._

Trent's front lawn still had the same wooden rocking horse pitched lamely on its side in the snow, making an easy landmark. If she remembered enough about the basement dwelling, Trent's room was on the north-east corner and had a sliver of a window near the top, opening to ground level. She crouched next to it and tried to peer into the darkness, but when her dragon-sight turned up nothing, she started pecking on the glass.

"Psst, bunnyfucker."

After half a minute of persistent tapping, a pair of ghostly paws scrambled around the window's frame and shoved it open just enough for a mousey-looking snout to peer through. "Wha-?" His whiskers flared in alarm. "You! Holy shit wh-what are you doing here?"

"Hey, I'm calling in that favor."

"Favor?" Trent squeaked, breaking his whispers.

"Yes, pickletail, that thing you owe me. I got a job for you."

"Oh, shit. Um, right now...?"

"No, tomorrow morning," she said earnestly (she was so accustomed to shooting down everything he said at Grillby's that it felt weird to open that sentence without sarcasm.) "You're gonna get your ass up and do one'a those sentry shifts."

Trent's distress hit an even higher note. "I'm not a sentry! Those dogs will totally ruin me!"

She bent closer and hissed, " _Only if you're a pussy about it._ God damn, I thought rabbits were known for having huge pairs. You skip out on growing yours or what?"

The jibe seemed to inject a speck of courage into him, at least. "No, shut up! Why do you even need me to work—oh my god, this is for _Sans_ , isn't it?"

"Did I say you could ask questions, nimble-me-numbnuts? The answer is yes, if you must know. We're going to be busy, and Papyrus will blow a fuckin' stack if that booth isn't covered."

The figure behind the glass boiled over with frothy snickers. "ohmygod the rumors are true...!"

Her clawed hand gripped the window frame, threatening to slam it down on something fuzzy. "Hey, cram it! Or I'll make sure the next thing your mother wakes up to is me ripping that pretty little button nose off your buck-toothed face and shoving it down your throat."

Trent shrank from the glass. "Y-Yes m'am. But what about my paper route?"

"Find a way, dingleberry! Second booth out the west side of town, past Doggo's. Be there, or I'll gut your wormy little rabbit hide." She let the window drop shut and strutted away.

The second she set foot off Trent's lawn, Sans was waiting for her in the street, hands nested in his coat pockets under a look of censuring bemusement. "you never consider asking nicely? do you always have to make threats and demands?"

She stepped up to him and crossed her arms, using her superior height to look down on the stocky critic. "When I can get away with it, yes, absolutely."

"you like torching every bridge you cross, huh?"

"I'm not getting this lecture from somebody who likes to employ _blackmail_."

Sans shifted away from her, body language backing down even if his casual grin meant to say he was only _letting_ her win. "hey, i like to fight fire with fire. can't _roast_ a guy for that. you gonna _grill_ me about it all night or are we gonna get moving?"

"Ugh, terrible. How'd you get here so fast, anyway?" She swatted her question down before she heard any more about _shortcuts_ —or, gods help her, another pun. "Wait, no, don't tell me. Just what happened with Papyrus?"

"he's in bed. i tucked him in and read him his favorite story. said it's no problem, about tomorrow. pap's reasonable, when you catch him a good mood."

She let out a tense breath. "That's a relief."

Sans looked charmed by her reaction. "heh, you let my bro walk all over you. it's pretty cute."

A furious blush threatened to betray her, even through the navy-colored shadows enveloping the street. "Shut up, I do not. He's just, uh... fuck, I don't know. Something about that guy. Or it's the time he stomped my shit in while barely trying." He had knocked her out both physically _and_ spiritually that day, which was impressive enough to instill a healthy fear of the guy.

"shoulda picked your fight better. my brother's really tough." His tone tread a line between judgment and pity. "don't tell me that's the only reason you haven't tried to bully us, too."

The part of her shouting that she didn't need to explain herself to anybody was quashed by an unfamiliar need to be honest, if brutal. "Let's just say that I was raised to only respect people who can beat the shit out of me."

Sans hummed in acknowledgement, if not agreement. "must be a violent place, where you're from."

"Yeah... it is," she said quietly, lingering on memories of her den-mates competing for scarce rations with hazing and fist-fights. At the end of each growth period, the scrawniest member of the den was singled out as the one who won the fewest of those brawls, and the instructors had the weakling culled from the class. She was taught not to ask what happened to those kids.

Her thoughts snapped back to the present. "Whatever, let's go. We've got a date with that bed of yours. I can't wait to go to sleep for once without the snore-fest orchestra playing next door."

"heh, isn't dating against your precious rules?"

She wagged her finger craftily. "I don't date my marks, is the rule. If I'm not getting paid for the job, you're technically not my mark tonight, are you?"

"eheh, that sounds like a loophole to me. then what does that make the two of us?"

She realized she'd backed herself into a corner with this train of thought, and derailed it with her typical vitriol. "Just shut the fuck up and com'on."

Sans stepped to her side, winked and hooked her elbow. "hey, it's cool. i was just _ribbin_ ' ya."

Before she could tell him to shut up with the jokes again, this time with more forced expletives, her perceived reality slammed into a hard jet wall. She felt like she was both pushed and pulled at once, stepping over the edge of a treadmill and carrying onto its inverted gravity beneath. Then she make the mistake of blinking, and she fell onto a forgiving, springy surface.

She gasped and sputtered, completely disarmed. Sans landed next to her on the mattress, and a glance at her surroundings told her she was in his bedroom. "Mother fucker! You could warn a bitch."

"eheheh, and miss the look on your face? priceless."

"Damn, you're an asshole," she groaned, flexing her tense limbs and stretching over the bed. "Think you could teach me that shit?"

"how to be an asshole? you already wrote the book on that, succubutt."

She punched his shoulder, and he absorbed it with another short chuckle. "heheh, ouch."

"Smartass. I'm talking about that shortcut shit. Is that magic or what?"

His eye-lights darted to the side as he sat up on his elbow, looking both coy and tickled. "heh, you think it's cool? papyrus hates when i prank him with it."

"You kidding? I know sorcerers that would saw their goddamn leg off to learn to teleport that easily."

"well they'd definitely need it to get around, after losing a leg."

She didn't bother concealing her grin in the dark room, although she still refused to be beguiled by his idea of humor. "Oh, shut your stupid face." She then sat up, drinking in the dim and dusty surroundings. "Anyway, that little trip sure got my heart going. I offered you some _therapy_ , besides." Her claws snaked under the open flap of his jacket. "You ready?"

He drew a ragged breath and the beads of light in his eye sockets flickered, indicating that he definitely felt the rush of warmth she poured through her shade. "y-yeah, sure."

The link was already there, waking up to play at a hair's notice, and Sans shuddered, shoulders rolling slack in anticipation. She curled against his side and wrapped her tail around his ankle, getting grounded before attempting a new trick. One of her hands slid gingerly up his flank, magic dancing between the tips of her claws, while the other pressed solidly into the invisible flab just below the waistline, where she remembered finding his aura's _sweet spot_.

Sans tensed, limbs pulling reflexively inward, and she felt a giddy pulse skitter across his ribcage and into her breast. "oh crap," he muttered. He drew another breath to speak, but the words were bitten off as the raw energy of her spirit lanced through his body like a bolt of lightning, arcing between polar fingertips. Her mark emitted a burst of colorful em-static and then a distinct, gravelly, " _fuck!_ " that pleased her ears.

She tested a few more bursts of energy, feeling the contents of his aura stir fiercely in his turgid belly and loose a few wily hiccups. "oh god— _hic_ —what—geez, what is this even— _hiiiic_!"

She chuckled darkly. "Heh heh, only fucking with you. Somebody should teach you about foreplay, after all."

"oh yeah?" he huffed, eye-lights coming to focus under a grim mask. Segmented fingers grasped her shoulder, and in a flash she got an impression that he was longing to do something (probably in retaliation), but abruptly realized that it wasn't physically possible— _just a skeleton_ was on the tip of her em-reading. The look that passed over his features was distinctly crestfallen, and her shade tasted an emotion that burned like frustration and shame.

She combed his aura to get a better reading, and was impressed by his quick arousal. She had definitely whipped his sex drive into shape over the relatively few times she'd marked him. His swift progress was not unheard-of in her profession, but fascinating to experience first-hand. Among circles of exotic mages, she once heard that "waking" virgin spirits was the most fun. She thought that was a crass statement at the time, but now had a certain appreciation for it.

But more importantly, she realized she had a problem.

 _He was going to make a move on me. His soul is getting sticky,_ her mind warned, painfully aware that he might've heard that across their heated link. It was the last thing she needed, though, and she was torn between knee-jerk anger for attempting to breach her rules and a pang that felt suspiciously like sympathy. She didn't like it at all. If he got too sticky, she could still shut him down, but if _she_ got sticky... gods help her.

She made the next move before he got another crazy idea, giving him a massage with an open hand that muddled his hyper-sensitive aura. Her touch teased through the fabric of his pants and into the soft pseudo-skin at the juncture of pelvis and thigh. The physical component made a good distraction, earning a moan from a lolling skull while she turned into herself, closing her eyes and concentrating on her own aura. Her shade wound up a spool of her wanton vigor, the threads shining lavender in her free hand.

She tugged on the line, stimulating her sweet spot and groaning through the effort at how satisfying it felt. All she had to do was thread it through his aura, tie it back into herself, and the link would translate her work into fine, spiritual pleasure. It was as easy as the last-

The last thing she saw straight was a whisper of cyan, _and then something happened._

There was a hard _twang_ resonating in her aura like a bow-string breaking, a pair of dove wings clapping over her heart, and then a feeling like sitting in the belly of a storm-tossed galleon, throwing her upside-down and over. The first alarm to fire off in her head was that something went really, _really_ wrong, catching her with her guard down so hard that she died instantly and hadn't caught up to the fact yet.

She gasped, sucking the taste of salt through her teeth and reeling over the spiritual sucker-punch. Suddenly she was on her back, one wing spread behind her head and off the corner of the mattress while the other was tucked against the springs. She was still in a bedroom, not the gates of Valhalla or a dirt grave or anything as dramatic as the afterlife, so that was a good sign, she supposed. She was rooted to the spot by some heady weight that tingled around the base of her spine, like a magic allergy, and it only amplified the wave of dizziness that clashed with the lust she'd been building up a moment ago.

" N o , " intoned a voice that was barely recognizable, making the hair on her neck stand up and her eyes fly open.

A body moved across her in the dark, and as its aura brushed against her shade she felt the familiar prickles of ink and indigo that was _Sans_. She focused her swimming vision and there he appeared, ever-smiling, a hint of bright blue underscoring the feral look of mischief that pooled between the corners of his eyes and the room's pitch shadows. He was on top somehow, and her thoughts babbled in outrage— _what the fuck_ he was _smaller_ than her, like a _freaking_ child, how could he possibly overpower her—but then a voice like bell toll jarred her memories.

 **"somebody should teach** _ **you**_ **about foreplay."**

She realized, then, that she had another problem: She might have "woken" something more deeply, grossly powerful than a simple virgin spirit. And she was completely at his mercy.

Sans didn't give her a chance to bemoan the turned tables. His left hand clamped around her collar and squeezed, filling her chest with cinder-feathers and blue-PURPLE-PINK- _RED_ , molten ecstasy, not enough to be painful but just enough to kindle madness. The invading magic skittered down her back and she heaved, fighting to breathe, drinking air that wasn't cool enough and _oh holy shit holy shit holy fucking spirit magic right there right THERE-_ "Oh, GOD," she belted out, finally breaking through the shock and winning a moment of clarity.

 _He's using exotic magic on ME._ She was too amazed to even think that she should have seen it coming.

The skeleton holding her down shook with a laugh; the sound was rich and smug. She was _going to kill him_ , if she ever got her faculties back. As it was, she could hardly feel her legs. If she didn't know any better, she'd say he was wielding spirit magic and that special, crushing blue magic of his at the same time, which was impressive—or at least, she'd remember to be impressed over his dead body.

She had rules against this, _so many rules_ , one of the very _first_ rules she gave him, in fact, and _he was just-_

He fed her another lash of magic colored with his spirit, foxfire trickling through her breast and cradling her delicate insides. A shiver racked the base of her tail and roiled her loins as the magic pooled _there_ , between her legs, slick and hot. She grit her teeth and panted, "You—fucking—cheating— _fuck_!"

"heh, heh. hmm?" Sans hummed, his tone lilting back towards something normal, yet he still had the upper hand in every possible way. She realized the sound was a question, probing her to respond just as intensely as the thumb that had slipped under her thong. Skeletal fingers were splayed below her navel and around her throbbing neck and she was shaking all over, her aura overloaded with gravity and desire and a lot of it was his—hell, _most_ of it was his. She could feel that electric blue thread twined around their link like a noose. It was exactly the trick she was about to use on him, but now he was holding the reins, the clever son of a bitch.

" _Fuck_ ," she answered in her own language, and trusted Sans to get the message.

The digits resting on her body flexed, left hand ghosting over her soul and through her aura—cool, heavy, distracting—while the right one snaked down, diving under the scrap of cloth holding her dignity together and going _down_ -

"Fffffffffffuck!"

He didn't have sex organs, true—but he did have fingers, deft and spindly. One of them burrowed _inside_ and everything below her waist _twitched_ , already wet and obscenely ready. She blearily thought that his hand should be rough, all joints and bones, but the false skin felt like wax and didn't leave a scratch of friction. By the time she thought to clench down and resist _somehow_ , Sans was eagerly exploring her sex like it was a new toy. The gleeful, guilty curiosity thrumming across their link conveyed his learning curve hilariously well, yet she couldn't spare the breath to laugh.

She was too pissed-off to find it funny, anyway. It wasn't that she wanted it to stop, per se. It felt stupidly good, in a way it was supposed to, else he was doing it wrong and she'd be _super-pissed_ , after all she taught him. This was just a scenario that hadn't crossed her mind. If she were ever— _ever_ —going to be party to honest-to-gods intercourse, she was going to be the one on top, period. All she really, desperately needed at that moment was for Sans to _get his stinking bone-mitt out of my craw so I can get back to driving this fuck-bus._

 _'nope, i've got the wheel,'_ carried across their link, rubbing it in—literally as well as figuratively. A foreign shade fondled her breast while bony phalanges teased her below.

"You mother fuck-!" she snarled and bucked senselessly beneath him, trying to break free, but his demi-magic chained her down, sapping her strength. At this point, the best she could do was make sure he felt, too—hard.

She rallied her nerves, reached out with her shade and used it to lasso the frayed thread of her sweet spot around his. Sans fucking _yelped_ , his control wavering as his aura projected the treatment he was dealing to her right back at him. She started to use the lapse in concentration to force her way to the top, but struggling only intensified the feedback through both their auras until the hues were blinding—her big idea backfired.

He blinked out of a dizzy haze, while the shared sensation only spurred him to press further, looking for that rush again. His finger nudged a spot _even sweeter_ inside her, and it was her turn to yell. "Oh fucking shit Sans, Sans-! Damn—fuck—me...!"

The sound of his name made his soul spasm, fresh stabs of arousal echoing back to her. "i'm tryin'," came his throaty reply, his eyes squeezed shut as he scrambled for purchase on both the writhing surface of her body and the rippling tide of her spirit. She closed her eyes as well and peered inward, watching their braided threads undulate like a pair of coupling serpents. _Well shit,_ she thought deliriously, _Who needed the 'no touching' rule anyway? It's all going to hell._

The pleasure was pierced abruptly like a railroad spike through her ribs, and all her muscles flexed in tandem with the shot of pain, seeking to claw it out. They were so heavily entwined, body and spirit, that she couldn't tell which end it came from, until Sans doubled over with a grunt. He wasn't about to give the matter a voice, but she overheard the tail of a pleading thought, _'-not now.'_

"Fucking _what_?" she rasped, not going to stomach this bullshit when he damn well knew that everything they felt was mutual, here.

"ugh," he said, rather succinctly, and strained to lift his head enough to look her in the eye. _'don't think my heart can take this.'_

 _Because this is more work than you've done all month, shithead._ "You can stop any time, you twat," she growled, inviting him to cut her loose.

To her chagrin he didn't, the magic pulsing under his palm as heavy as ever. "heh heh heh heh," Sans uttered thickly into her shoulder, as if he were just realizing that the mental eavesdropping worked both ways. "don't sweat it; i'ma finish," he croaked.

He caught a gulping breath, and then another, and after a moment that echo-ache in her chest receded and he picked up his resolve. His shade strummed across a row of taut threads, making her whole being quiver like a lute, and then she felt a second finger join the first, tearing her back to the more palpable side of the experience. After a bit of fumbling they crooked into _just_ the right spot, like pulling a trigger, and a shotgun burst of magic leapt in release.

She gasped, breathed, _came_ —and then _couldn't see anything._ It was pure drowning, being smothered in euphoria that was too hers and not hers at once. Tangent souls crashed together, bleed all over, snatched her senses and fed them piecemeal back to her, dripping with mingled sweat and heartbeats.

Then, before she actually died, the threads around her spirit grew slack and the colors of their link turned lukewarm, finally relaxing. Her brain sluggishly crawled back to the present, until she discovered that the weight trapping her to the bed wasn't magic anymore. Sans had collapsed, face planted in the mattress and the rest of him draped across her midriff, still trembling as the waves of their orgasm subsided. She poked him with a claw.

"Still alive?" _If you've fucking passed out already I swear to eight gods-_

"uhn," he said. Then, after a long minute, "...did we look stupid?"

 _About as stupid as you look right this second._ "Probably. Fuck if I was watching."

"heh heh. me neither."

She grabbed him by the ankle and flipped him aside, like shucking off a blanket. He gave a graceless "oof" and lay staring at the ceiling, one leg up against the wall.

They shared a quiet, detached moment. Sans had broken her rules on the most profound level possible, and she was... angry, yes, but she was angry all the time. That wasn't really new. She was more surprised, and a little relieved. It could've been worse. It could've been someone much less merciful than Sans, as underhanded and shameless as the little guy could get. He could've dealt some real damage, if he were inclined. Marks were tricky, fickle, violent. That was always a hazard of the job. _It was all the more reason to follow the rules._

She just couldn't believe it; she'd been marked.

 _Teach a man to fish, and he'll use the rod to fuck you._

An absurd piece of her was waiting on a penalty to drop for breaking the code of the _exotic mage_ , leaking trade secrets and exposing her weakness for the world to take advantage. Nothing horrible happened, however, even as she lay there anticipating it. In fact, she felt kind of... nice. Every inch of her shade tingled and throbbed with residual bliss.

The rest of her felt really, really sticky, both the good and bad kind. Sans seemed to know the feeling. He was holding his right hand over his face and studying the clear, viscous fluid coating his fingertips, openly fascinated. "is it always gooey?"

She was so fed up with his antics at this juncture that she couldn't explain if she tried. "No." When she raised her own hand, trying to summon the energy to wipe herself off, she found her fingers slick with something darker. She wrinkled her nose at it, perplexed, and then flicked her tongue over the substance. _Blood?_

"Uh, one of us is bleeding," she said fecklessly.

Two little beads of light darted to her, then back, and then they both noticed the red blotch on his white shirt. "uh. 's me."

She wondered when that happened. Neither of them moved to remedy it right away. "You, uh, okay? You need a... invisible band-aid or something? I didn't know skeletons could bleed."

He numbly stared at the scratch on his abdomen. "yeah...? no? i do, at least." Sans was half-dazed, and it was a small miracle he wasn't snoring already, just like every time she marked him. It might've been the pain and shock keeping him awake.

The blemish on his shirt wasn't spreading, she noted, so he probably wasn't going to bleed out. That was the good news. "That's gonna stain," she managed to say, instead.

"huh. i'll tell pap it's ketchup."

 _Or you could do your own goddamn laundry?_ She sighed, exasperated. "You're such an ass. That's on you, by the way, for that fucking stunt you pulled. I'm a motherfucking dragon; you're lucky I didn't rip you to pieces. Also, that fingering shit—where did you even think to try that?" _I know for a fact that you've never seen pussy in your life before tonight._

"uh," Sans hesitated, scratching his cheek. He _almost_ looked abashed. "you know those human movies we watch?"

"Yeah?"

"yeah."

"...Oh. Goddamn. Seriously? You shouldn't pull all your moves from moving pictures. Also, I'm having a hell of a time right now, picturing you watching porn with your brother."

One of his slippers fell off his foot as Sans cringed all over. "oh god, we don't! holy hell, don't tell papyrus. i borrowed a tape from grillby."

She squinted at him, torn between asking what kind of freak that bartender was and, " _Why_? It's not like you could jerk off to it."

"i was only, uh, curious."

"Really?" She had a hard time buying that, and a nagging suspicion that she was the catalyst for his ulterior _curiosity_. "Was this before or after I got here?"

He smiled.

"You know what? Don't answer that. But _while we're on the subject_ ," she said as she raised her tone and posture to stick him with a lecture, "I thought we fucking talked about this. Do you even _know_ what 'consent' means?"

A few sloppy, languid laughs bubbled out of her mark. "never heard you say no."

"That's-" she stumbled over her tongue, stopping short. Technically he was correct; he probably would have ended that circus ride at any point if she'd merely asked. "Not the fucking point? For shit's sake, you're supposed to ask. Since I gotta spell shit out for you, you motley armpit, let me lay it down in plain language: always. freaking. _ask_. And for that matter, don't do any of this in public. This is bedroom business only. It really should go without saying, but you're kind of an asshole, and I can already picture you making excuses like-"

"what if i'm too lazy to go to my room?"

"THAT, exactly. Try NOT being too lazy, you fuckstick."

"but-"

"No."

"what if nobody-"

Before Sans could finish objecting, she snared the collar of his shirt, dragged him over from where he was sitting upside-down against the wood paneling and belted into his face, "NO, goddamn it. Don't try to get smart about this. You've got a sex drive now, and you're going to handle it like an adult, especially once I'm gone. I know when you're sleeping, I know when you're awake, I'll know if you've been bad or good and I'll KNOW WHEN YOU'RE FUCKING AROUND, like a whore version of _Santa Claus_. If you pull anything _weird_ around other people, it doesn't matter where in the goddamn universe I am; I will get on my fucking whore sleigh and jump the nearest gate RIGHT BACK HERE to kick your ass. Is that clear?"

Ironically, he suddenly looked as boneless as a rag doll. "...yes m'am."

She released him, but he didn't budge, inert as a sack of potatoes. She flopped onto her backside and expelled a long breath. The plan had been to spend the night here, but... _I've broken enough rules tonight._ "...I should get going. Not supposed to stay."

Sans yawned. "i won't tell nobody." He was going to nod off on the spot, jacket and slippers and all.

"Tch, yeah, like I haven't heard that before," she scoffed, but couldn't scrape up the willpower to move her bones, either. She idled next to him, tempering her racing thoughts and watching her mark's chest rise and fall until the motions were indistinguishable from slumber. His eyes and mouth slid into closed, happy little curves. _He is cute_ , she permitted herself to think. _...For a creepy, stupid skeleton._

Then Sans started snoring, and she smirked. _Oh, what the hell? You're making me break all my other rules, you big dumb bastard._ The mattress smelled like burnt dust at the bottom of a grease trap, but was still leagues better than that couch downstairs.

She tried to sleep, but it didn't come too quickly. She kept looking at him and thinking, wondering... Talking about spirit magic made her realize that she never got a direct read on his soul, the way she did with Papyrus. There was the first (horribly) failed reading, and then the one right before she marked him, but that was just the bare-minimum, a standard for the job. She didn't really get to explore _why_ Sans had been picked for the job—what about his soul made that shady man so interested—what it was that made her crystal charm burn black and blue.

But now both the question and the opportunity were in the air, she was really, simply, tiredly curious. At this point she'd seen plenty of monster souls, and just wanted to compare. Maybe she had a theory going and maybe not, but she was still riding a little high off guessing Papyrus's spiritual make-up, and wanted to see if she could double her luck.

She barely even had to sit up. Sans was nestled at her side, where the claws of her hand could all-too-easily graze the breastbone. She closed her eyes and gazed through her shade.

So far she'd seen his thick shell of bleached monster magic, and then an aura beneath that smelled a little too human—which made sense, because skeleton? Maybe. Her second reading had passed over what was likely his heart, but she didn't stop to study it at the time—again, she was trying to avoid it while working her mark.

She actively looked for it now, and luckily didn't have to dig very deep. Their strong link murmured a thread of trust that was just enough for his usually clam-tight aura to yield. She breathed a little magic through her shade that brushed aside stalks of tranquil blue like reeds in a marsh, and then, in the pit of his ribcage, she found it.

She'd seen a lot of things in her travels, and studied a lot of souls for her work. Dragon souls blazed like fireballs. Fairy souls were shiny and iridescent. Human souls were vibrantly-colored and opaque, solid and strong, reflecting their strength of will.

But _this_ thing... It was heart-shaped as so many souls were, but not candy-white or brilliant like the monsters'. It was like a tiny stained glass window, coral-hued, translucent, faintly luminous and... fractured. She counted at least four pieces, quilted together with thick white stitches and leaving cracks where that colorless magic these monsters used seeped through like glue. There might have been a fifth piece, giving its shape more symmetry, but it looked as if a corner of the heart had been sheered away, a spectral veneer left in its place like a phantom.

She stared at it for more than a minute, dumbfounded. It had the flavor of a human soul, but none of the virility. It had the scent of monsters, but not one's texture. It was a little of both and neither, a bizarre jigsaw at the core of his spirit. _So what the actual fuck IS he?_

 _Papyrus is a golem_ , she reminded herself. A golem is a magical construct. His soul and his brand were one and the same; it was very clear and obvious. And Sans was... not a golem, since there was no brand here, but now that she looked at the other half of the puzzle, she began to wonder whether this soul was also... constructed?

 _This is... dangerous._ The kind of soulmancer who could cobble together something like this was the kind of person she never wanted to meet. It was probably someone the monsters here would do well to avoid, too, unless-

 _'I dunno why the king doesn't just absorb their souls now.'_

Wait. The monsters can absorb human souls; the guys at Grillby's had said so. It was remarkably rare, but not too far-fetched, right? If a monster had the power to up and steal a human soul, just like that, and claim it as their own, then what if...?

 _What if...?_

 _'...if a monster ever does... they'll probably become the most powerful thing in the underground.'_

She lay awake in the dark and wondered.


	23. Caterwauling

Amazingly (almost frighteningly), Sans woke up before she did. She only realized this when she rolled over at some groggy hour in the morning and he wasn't there, the room chilly and dingy without him.

"Motherfucks don't believe in heaters," she grumbled as she pulled her cloak more snugly around her shoulders, and tried to snatch another hour's respite. She gradually grew more bored than tired, however, and made the (extremely short) tumble out of bed.

It made a lame sort of sense that the brothers wouldn't keep any fires going. One was a skinless golem who only seemed to wear clothes to keep up appearances, the other wore a coat all day, and maintaining a hospitable hearth was far too much of a chore for the latter.

She was surprised, then, to actually find a fire going downstairs—it was just in the kitchen.

"GOOD MORNING, FORTUNE TELLER," Papyrus sang from the stove, where a skillet full of eggs was politely trying to combust. "HAVE A SEAT, WON'T YOU? THIS WELL-CRAFTED BREAKFAST WILL NEED ASSISTANCE BEING VANQUISHED."

"Uh, sure," she replied, to both. She took a chair and then spun a look around the empty living room. "Where'd your stupid brother go?"

"NO NEED FOR NAME-CALLING, MY PRE-COGNIZANT FRIEND," Papyrus lightly chided. "YOU COULD AT LEAST USE THE RIGHT ONE. I KNOW AT LEAST A DOZEN THAT WOULD FIT MY BROTHER PERFECTLY—SUCH AS LAZY, SLOTHFUL, MESSY, SLIMY, SMART-ALEC-Y, LAZY—DID I ALREADY USE THAT ONE? IT DESERVES A SECOND MENTION—BUT STUPID HE IS NOT. IN FACT..." He narrowed a wary look at the door. "HE HAD THAT VERY CLEVER LOOK ON HIS FACE AS HE LEFT THIS MORNING. HE NEVER WAKES UP EARLY FOR A GOOD REASON, SO HE MUST BE UP TO NO GOOD."

The eggs hit some sort of flash point, Papyrus declaring they were done once they turned to coal with a soft 'poof.' He scraped them onto two plates and served each with a glass of milk.

 _This milk is the only edible part_ , she thought as she swallowed a long, cool swig of the stuff. She had to wonder what kind of animal produced it, since she hadn't encountered any subterranean cattle before.

"A GOOD BREAKFAST WILL FRESHEN YOUR BONES," Papyrus interrupted her musings. "I'M SURE YOU COULD USE THE EXTRA BOOST TODAY. HAVING SEX WITH MY BROTHER MUST BE EXHAUSTING, SINCE HE PROBABLY MAKES YOU DO ALL THE WORK."

Her mouthful of milk sprayed all over her eggs. It didn't make them look any more appetizing. It took a moment to stop gagging long enough to spit out, "Papyrus...!"

"OH NO! ARE YOU ALL RIGHT? I DIDN'T KNOW THAT MILK PRESENTED A CHOKING HAZARD, EXCEPT WHEN YOU LAUGH TOO HARD AND IT COMES OUT YOUR NOSE. WAIT, DID I MAKE A FUNNY?" She couldn't entirely discern the look on his face (even at the best times), but he grinned in a sort of self-possessed way that clashed with the naiveté—assertive, concerned, confusing.

"N-No, just... fucking hell," she uttered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "You knew?"

"WHAT, THAT SANS IS LAZY? WE JUST TALKED ABOUT IT. YOU MUST BE TIRED, TO PAY ATTENTION SO POORLY." He doubled back on the astonished look she was drilling into him. "OH, YOU MEAN ABOUT HAVING SEX WITH MY BROTHER. YES, I FIGURED IT OUT. IT'S BEEN FAIRLY OBVIOUS, IN HINDSIGHT. AND LOUD. IS THERE A WORD FOR HIND-HEARING? AT ANY RATE, I COULD HEAR YOU THROUGH THE WALLS. EITHER YOU TWO WERE HAVING INTERCOURSE, OR PLAYING THE WORLD'S MOST VULGAR GAME OF SCRABBLE."

He paused and looked at the ceiling, playing out that hypothetical transaction in his head and squinting at the results. "...WITH A LOT OF 'F'S ON THE BOARD." He looked back down at her and said brightly, "IF IT WEREN'T DISGUSTING, I'D BE RATHER IMPRESSED. I DIDN'T THINK IT WAS POSSIBLE? SANS WOULD NORMALLY BE TOO LAZY TO BOTHER LEARNING HOW."

She didn't have a response to any of that. ... _I should give this guy more credit_.

"SPEAKING OF MY LACKADAISICAL SIBLING," Papyrus carried on without her. "HE INVITED YOU TO SOME HI-JINKS TODAY. HE WANTED ME TO TELL YOU TO MEET HIM ON THE CLIFF SOUTH OF THE LUMBER YARD."

Her brow twitched. "How the hell am I supposed to know where that is?"

"QUITE SIMPLY," Papyrus assured her with the twirl of a fork. "I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL GUIDE YOU!"

Nearly an hour later, after a brisk dish-wash and then traipsing uphill through troughs of mud and snow, she and Papyrus stopped on an outcropping that overlooked a bundle of storehouses, a barn and a half-frozen lake. Long, twisting, mud-filled ruts paved the basin below, plowed by hundreds of spear-shaped footprints and sundry carts parked askew along an edge of pine trees. A tin-covered shed presuming to be an office sat next to a dock that cut into the frigid water.

Papyrus set his jaw in a look of consternation. "THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS NOT SURE IF HE APPROVES."

Next to him, Sans grinned, brimming with mischief. The succubus stared at the contraption behind him, recognizing its tall wooden frame and cross-beams from that thing she watched Papyrus build south of town. Off to the side sat a cardboard box large enough to crawl inside. Its crude, heavy lettering matched the note she got after first waking up on Papyrus's couch, so doubtlessly Sans wrote it. Holding the flaps of the box closed was a thick volume, and judging by the muted color and stark font on its cover, it wasn't another joke book.

"I have so many questions I don't even know where to begin," she said.

"AS DO I," Papyrus said, although he had much less trouble getting started. "WHAT ARE WE DOING? WHY DID YOU MOVE THE CAT-APULT UP HERE?"

"And how...?" she interjected. The apparatus looked to be six times his weight.

"IS THIS WHAT YOU SKIPPED WORK TO DO? DID YOU STEAL THAT QUANTUM PHYSICS BOOK FROM THE LIBRARY? ALSO, WHAT IS A 'SCHRODINGER' AND HOW DID YOU GET A BOX FULL OF IT?"

"i know a guy," Sans said shiftily, and volunteered nothing else.

"I DON'T LIKE THIS, THOUGH. I THOUGHT WE AGREED NOT TO USE THE CAT-APULT ANYMORE. THE LAST TIME WE TRIED TO FIRE IT, THE RESULTS WERE... UNSETTLING."

She lent Papyrus a bewildered look, not liking whatever the hell _that_ meant.

"that's because you pointed it straight at the mouse hole. i told ya, you just gotta give it room to breathe. besides," he said, patting one of the supports. "i recalibrated the whole rig myself."

"YOU DID? WOWIE, THAT'S SO HELPF-" The look of pride on Papyrus's face collapsed in a heartbeat. "-WAIT. YOU WORKED ON THIS?"

"uh-huh."

"REAL WORK? YOU?"

Sans bothered to look insulted, for once. "don't sound so shocked, bro."

"I CAN'T HELP IT. YOU ONLY WORK WHEN... WELL, YOU JUST DON'T. I'M TRYING TO IMAGINE WHAT'S MOTIVATED YOU TO DO SUCH A THING, AND I DON'T LIKE WHAT'S COMING TO MIND."

"heh, you got me... i wouldn't lift a finger if i didn't have a good reason." He then shifted on his feet, turning towards the yard far below. "i'll lay it to you straight, pap. succubutt and i have a little _bone_ to pick with our good pal malk, and we're gonna do it right _meow_."

Papyrus balled his fists and stamped the ground. "DARN IT, THAT'S NOT STRAIGHT AT ALL! THAT'S ANOTHER AWFUL JOKE."

"heh, all work and no puns makes a dull boy. anyway, i only need a little help. succubutt, how're those wings ya got?"

She'd been flexing them every morning, delicately testing their tensile strength without stressing the bone. One good thing about being half-dragon was the self-healing factor, so she figured the fracture was smoothed over by now. "...Better," she decided. "I haven't tried them since you broke one, though. Thanks again, asshat."

Sans hummed dismissively and scratched his chin, focused on a point far away. "think you can get up those trees over there, with or without flying?"

She stared into the cloud of pine branches directly ahead, their trunks driving pin-straight into the murky soil around the lake, some forty feet below. "I can climb... but, uh, why?"

"need a clear shot'a the dock. just gotta take out some of those low branches without getting caught, ya feel me?" Sans gave her an encouraging nudge, and she frowned back.

"Well, shit. I can give it a shot. You got some clippers or something?"

He narrowed a look at her clawed feet.

"Fucking really?" She rolled her shoulders and huffed. "Ugh, fine."

Sans chuckled and stooped behind the box to grab something. He passed her a rusted hand saw. "as fun as that would be to watch, it'll be quieter if you use this."

She snatched the tool with a grunt. "Yeah, you think so, smartass? I'll be right back."

As she shucked off her cloak and braced against the edge of the cliff, Papyrus helpfully shouted, "BE CAREFUL, FORTUNE TELLER! IT'S A STEEP DROP."

"yo papyrus, indoor voice, okay?"

"BUT WE'RE OUTSIDE!"

"yeah, but... y'know, pretend."

"OH. I CAN DO THAT! PRETENDING IS ONE OF MY STRONG SUITS. IT'S NOT NEAR AS STRONG AS CAPTAIN UNDYNE'S, THOUGH. I NEED TO INVEST IN STEEL PLATING..."

Not sticking around for the asinine conclusion to that discussion, she propelled herself towards the nearest ring of trees, wings catching the still, cold air for a silent glide. She hit one tree with a clatter, claws sheering off chips of bark that tumbled to the ground, but otherwise made a solid landing on one of its thick limbs. After sizing up the surrounding branches, she brandished the saw and got to work, trying to shave down the greenery in as clandestine a way as a six-foot-tall, six-limbed dragon lady could possibly manage.

A pine needle stuck in her ear, drawing a prickling curse. Still, the skeletons' discourse carried to her from the rocks.

"HOW MUCH IS ARMOR POLISH, ANYWAY?"

"any day now, with that pretending."

"OH, RIGHT. WAIT... THIS PRETENDING SOUNDS A LOT LIKE SNEAKING. WHY ARE WE BEING SNEAKY?"

"all part of the plan."

"WHY WASN'T I BRIEFED ON THIS PLAN? I COULD HAVE WORN MY SNEAKERS INSTEAD OF BOOTS. YOU GET IT? BECAUSE SNEAKING."

"hilarious, bro."

She had a moment where she wondered what to do with all these trimmings. Letting them hit the ground would give her position away, wouldn't it? She cast an eye downward, descrying any movement below. The yard appeared completely deserted. _Then why the shit am I trying to be stealthy?_

"shhhh, here he comes," Sans answered that question. Her head darted towards the sound of a door creaking, and then she spied the target: Malk the red mallard, sauntering out of his office and onto the pier.

"right on time," the older skeleton noted.

"HE IS? HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT?"

"malk's a smoker. he never does it indoors, but i see him go outside grillby's sometimes, and i've watched him out here for a bit. that's his favorite spot for a break."

She watched, and sure enough, Malk waddled into a comfortable position at the edge of the dock, struck a match and lit a cigarette. She looked back to Sans for guidance, and the skeleton nodded, gesturing for her to return. The bundle of pine trimmings was unpleasantly ticklish, but she held it close as her legs and wings kicked her back to the cliff. She unceremoniously dumped the pile of needles behind the cardboard box and brushed off her clothes, growling, "This better be worth it."

"oh, ye have little faith," Sans said drolly, and put his weight on a crank that winched the catapult's arm into place. He then went to the box, removed the book atop it, gingerly reached under the flap and withdrew... a cat.

It wasn't a cat-monster, many of which she'd seen around the hotel, nor a wildcat, but a run-of-the-mill orange housecat. It mewed and squirmed as Sans held it by the scruff.

"What the shit," she said, appalled on a level she didn't know was possible for her, personally. "You guys weren't kidding about this thing firing live cats, were you?"

"nope," Sans affirmed. "but i mean, it's relatively safe."

"HOW IS SMASHING INTO A CLIFF AND SHATTERING EVERY BONE IN ITS SOFT, PUNY BODY SAFE?" Papyrus railed at him, apparently alluding to the last experiment with the 'cat-apult.'

"relative to that first test, i meant," Sans amended. "papyrus, you do remember that wasn't a real cat, right? it was a squash you drew ears and whiskers on."

"IT WAS ABSOLUTELY A SQUASH AFTER WHAT THE CAT-APULT DID TO IT. OH, POOR MISTER WIGGLESWORTH." Papyrus sighed forlornly, and then snapped back to the present. "REALLY THOUGH, WE SHOULDN'T DO THIS. WHERE DID YOU EVEN FIND THAT FELINE? WHAT IF IT BELONGS TO SOME SAD PERSON?"

"nah, it was donated by science."

She hated to argue on the side of semantics, but, "Don't you mean 'to' science?"

"noooope," Sans said once more, and placed the cat in the bucket of the catapult. "hey succubutt, hold it down for me. let go on my mark."

She didn't know why she complied to this, and the cat didn't appreciate her grip any more that it did Sans's, but she was holding out for this activity to become interesting in her benefit. "All right, we're set."

"OH, DEAR." Papyrus's voice took on a whimpering pitch. "I DON'T THINK I CAN WATCH."

"relax. cats always land on their feet, right?"

"THAT'S NOT A PROVEN FACT!"

"it will be after this," Sans said, and gave the mark. The air rang with a crisp, plaintive shriek and the catapult's fuzzy payload rocketed off the cliff. The succubus watched with a touch of awe as the cat sailed through the clearing she had cut and towards the lake, its limbs splayed in rigid panic like a flying squirrel.

The cat hit the dirt in front of the dock paws-first, the force of the landing driving its legs into the muck like nails. It sat stock-still like that for a moment, looking like a loaf of bread (with tiny ears and a tail) from a distance. She watched Malk turn towards the disturbance and startle loudly, the curse he emitted more like a squawk than anything she could read. The cat was shaken from its stupor by the noise, and it clambered out of the mud and streaked away.

Behind her, Papyrus visibly deflated. "THANK GOODNESS. THAT DIDN'T END WITH THE KIND OF SPLAT I WAS THINKING IT WOULD."

Sans was snickering on his way back to the box, where he pulled forth another cat. "heheh quick, let's do another."

The next cat (grey with white boots) was twice as loud and half as graceful, hitting the water behind Malk just as the duck was puzzling over the first cat's landing spot. "Holy shit...!" was articulated via her em-reading across the yard, making her flinty mask split with a grin.

"Okay, this is getting good," she confessed.

Sans shuffled between the box and the catapult in a hurry, stuffing two more cats into the bucket. "don't slow down yet. we're gonna make it rain _cats and dogs_. only with cats."

More small, flailing bodies took to the air, the sound of their cries snuffed by acceleration alone. She saw one land squarely in front of the duck, making him scramble backwards down the pier. The other sailed over Malk's head and took a dive in the lake, the short splash it produced amusing in itself. Sans didn't even wait to watch. When she looked down, three more squirming fur-balls were in the bucket.

If Papyrus had actual eyes, they would have popped out of his head. He pointed at the box with dread. "HOW MANY CATS ARE IN THERE?"

"as many as we need," Sans declared, and the succubus helped him line up the next shot.

Away the three went—two touched down around the front of the pier, blocking Malk in, and one grey tabby went wide, going into a blurry tailspin after clipping a tree. It landed on the roof of a shed, slid down the corrugated tin and clung to a gutter, drumming up a racket.

"What in god's stinking hell is going on?!" was Malk's next outburst, and she didn't need to be a mind-reader of any kind to tell it was made in terror. _He's afraid of the little bastards_ , she realized with a touch of schadenfreude.

Three squeaky meows were clipped in unison as they fired another triple-shot. Cats of sundry colors began to pepper the yard, and a handful fixed their attention on the duck that was scrambling in place on the narrow pier, afraid to cross the line of meowing, spitting sentries. Malk's far-away complaints were turning into a chant. "What the fuck, what the fuck, what the FUCK-"

"Haaaaaaah hah, this is a fucking riot," the succubus cackled.

Another triple-shot followed. And another. She could hardly hold in more than two, yet Sans winched the arm so quickly she didn't have a second to complain, much less for any cats to escape. He was more adroit at wrangling the ammunition from box to bucket than anybody had right to be, although he seemed to think otherwise, and his next words were forced through a bit of panting. "hey pap, if you work the crank here, it'll go faster."

Papyrus crossed his arms, his naked grimace twisted into a pout. "I REGRET EVEN BEING PARTY TO THIS RIDICULOUS PRANK."

"Hey, you've followed us this far," she argued. "Might as well not half-ass it. You only live once, you know?"

Her em-static buzzed with a drawling word that almost coalesced into _'actually...'_ and she felt the color drain from the other end of their link.

Sans finished loading another bucket of cats and said out loud, instead, "and some got eight extra lives. com'on bro, don't be a party-pooper. nobody's even hurt." Then his grin cracked ever-wider, and she could tell by the younger brother's sharp flinch that he knew what was coming. "these cats are purr-fectly _fe-line_."

"OH MY G-" Papyrus was interrupted by another _THWAMP_ and _REIIIOW_ from the cat-apult, and everyone stopped to watch three more cats join the fray. Their small, disgruntled murmurs were fast growing into a chorus, almost overpowering Malk's cursing.

"There's getting to be a lot of fuckin' cats down there, and they sound pissed," she observed.

"yeah, malk's getting _littered_ with 'em."

"OH MY GOD YOU TWO," Papyrus worked in his objection, despite them both. "THIS IS HORRIBLE! WE SHOULDN'T BE LAUGHING AT THIS."

"well yeah, he'll probably hear us if we do."

"THAT'S NOT MY POINT, SANS!"

Sans didn't waste another minute, sending another three on their way. The timing was absurdly perfect; just as the duck turned in their direction, honing in on the source of the mayhem, a furry black cannonball struck him head-on. The cat instantly stapled itself to Malk's face, inertia driving both into the lake with a warbling, cacophonous swear and a splash big enough to stain the old wood of the dock.

That broke her—the succubus rolled backwards in a fit of laughter. Even Sans stopped to admire the damage, his shoulders shaking with deep, relishing chuckles. When she wiped the corners of her eyes and looked back at Papyrus, his expression was muddled, rictus twitching with suppressed mirth. "NYEH... HEH... OKAY, IT'S A LITTLE FUNNY."

Sans beamed at him, delighted by the approval so much she could see a blush of bright blue across their link when she blinked. Their mutual merriment was cut short by a brash shout from the yard.

"What the ever-living—SANS? Sans, you big puckered asshole! What's the meaning of this?"

Sans answered with another volley. "i dunno, buddy, you tell me! looks like you're getting the crap beat of out you!"

"Gak!" Malk thrashed his way out of the water in time to avoid a tortoiseshell. He then made a mad-dash across the yard, wrenching a machete from a stump and waving it wildly to clear a path. The cats were only incensed by the assault, and a trickle of them pursued him all the way up the trunk of a pine. She couldn't help notice that Malk climbed impressively fast for a monster with webs instead of claws.

"oh, my bad. i shouldn't use that word, right? i guess we'll say you're getting the _cat_ beat out of you, then." Sans punctuated the bad joke with another airborne cat.

A hairy white brute leapt at Malk's tail feathers, and was narrowly rebuffed by the swing of his blade. "Sweet fucking mercy, Sans! What the blazing fuck on a bicycle…!"

The succubus suddenly realized two things: what this entire cat caper was all about, and that Sans could _carry a grudge like a motherfucker._

"Great hoary summoned gods," she swore in appreciation, as Sans loaded the bucket with two more and then gave the mark. "Bomb's away, mother-ducker!"

"heheh good one, succubutt."

Malk latched onto the sound of her voice. "Whore?! I shoulda known your slutty mitts were in this, too!"

It was especially satisfying to watch the next cat land on a branch near Malk, forcing him to fend off an angry paw above as well as below. "Son of a—stop with the cats, please! I hate cats! What the hell's gotten into you people?!"

She nearly jumped at how well Papyrus's voice carried into the basin. "YOU SHOULD GIVE IN TO MY BROTHER'S DEMANDS, WHATEVER THEY ARE. I CAN TELL YOU FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE THAT HE'S VERY UNREASONABLE WHEN HE SETS HIS MIND TO SOMETHING!" Papyrus frowned a tick at the box, from which Sans procured another mewling pair. "...ALSO, WE HAVE INFINITE CATS."

"Et tu, Papyrus?!" Malk wailed. "What do you psychos even want?"

"Call off your motherfucking swear jar!" she shouted. Sans simply nodded, backing her up. Since they were bargaining, she thought to add, "...And quit calling me whore!"

"NYEH HEH, YES! IT'S VERY RUDE! SHE IS MY GUEST, YOU KNOW! I CAN VOUCH FOR HER HONOR IF I MUST!"

Considering their conversation over eggs that morning, she was impressed by that sentiment. She wondered what Sans had to say about it, but the only language he was speaking at the moment was flying cats.

 _THWAMP._ Another joined Malk on an adjacent branch, two were scratching their way up the trunk, and eight were prowling around its roots. Countless others were milling about the yard, making it look like the world's fluffiest mine field.

Malk sounded close to tears. "Okay, okay, please, just stop! You people are insane!"

"So you'll get rid of it?" she asked.

" _Yes_ , you big whiny bitches!"

"OH MY GOD," Papyrus turned his umbrage back to his brother, finally catching up to the plot. "ALL OF THIS SO YOU COULD USE PROFANITY AT YOUR AWFUL PUB?"

Sans shrugged. "pretty much, yeah."

"UNBELIEVABLE. YOU'RE COMPLETELY INCORRIGIBLE."

"nice, you found a way to use that word."

"I KNOW, EVER SINCE I READ IT IN THE CROSSWORD I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THE BEST OPPORTUNITY. I KNEW YOU WOULDN'T FAIL ME, BROTHER."

"you still didn't beat that crossword, though."

"TCH, BECAUSE IT'S CHEATING! I WISH THEY'D PUT THAT OTHER PUZZLE BACK IN THE PAPER. IT WAS WAY MORE FAIR!"

Malk's outrage boiled to the surface, spilling over his horror, puffing out his feathers and cutting through the air like acid. "Hey, you cock-gobblers, you said you'd get rid of these cats!"

The succubus smirked. "Looks like we won this battle."

Papyrus couldn't be happier about it. "YES, IT'S TIME TO CALL OFF THESE AWFUL SHENANIGANS. I REGRET EVER BUILDING THAT CAT-APULT. WE SHOULD JUST DESTROY IT, BEFORE ITS HIDEOUS POWER FALLS INTO THE WRONG HANDS."

She passed a look to Sans, who shrugged again, apparently not invested in the fate of the contraption. "If you guys insist," she said. She stood up, planted a foot on its base and rallied her dragon's strength to kick it neatly over the cliff. It crashed atop a stack of lumber yards below, eliciting another curse from Malk.

"Hey! Quit junking up my yard, you shit-smears!"

"It's all wood, pussy burglar!" she shouted back. "Isn't this a lumber yard? Just sell the shit."

"I swear to GOD, when I get down from here...!"

She ignored the rest of his threat and turned around to share her annoyance with Papyrus. "Should we even bother chasing the cats off? I say let the bastard fend for himself."

"THERE'S HONOR IN MERCY, FORTUNE TELLER!" he declared. "ALSO YES, THIS IS YOUR MESS. YOU SHOULD CLEAN IT UP. I, ON THE OTHER HAND, SHOULD BE GETTING TO WORK. I'M LATE FOR MY PATROL! PLEASE, MAKE SURE MY BROTHER GETS RID OF ALL THESE STRAY ANIMALS."

And just like that, Papyrus strutted away, humming a ditty. "He puts an awful lot of faith in us," she remarked to his back.

"it's his way," Sans said, and she detected a pinch of admiration. _I'll never get how these two dumbasses look up to each other so hard._

"So, what's the plan for these hairballs? And how the hell did you summon so many? What kind of sorcery did you cook up with that box? I'm legitimately curious."

"a true magician never reveals his secrets."

"You're a mysterious little shit, that's for sure." Her humored mien dissolved into concern as she looked out over the small army of felines. "Uh, but seriously. We going to put these things back where they came from, or...?"

Sans tugged at his collar, grin stretching into a nervous expression. "um, heh, no? the box doesn't, uh... work like that. actually, i didn't think past this part of the plan."

 _Of course you didn't._ "God damnit."


	24. Dog Night

It took an hour and a half and a raid of Malk's tool shed, but they improvised. She had to do most of the catching, since the cats were nimble and so was she, with the bonus of flight. There was a perverse kind of fun to swooping across the yard and plucking her galloping prey from the ground like a hawk, even if it was only to stuff another cat in a burlap sack and pass it off to Sans. By the time they finished, they had a miserable mound of crying housecats in one huge, writhing fishing net, and still no clue what to do with them all.

Sans said he had an idea, though, and told her he would handle it himself. The only catch was that she couldn't watch him do it, so she left the yard after making him promise not to do anything _incredibly inhumane_. Sans assured her that he would "find a good home" for the critters.

She left to find Trent, who was good to his word and sitting at Sans's sentry booth, looking appropriately bored. She gave him a piece of gold, told him to _get lost_ and worked the rest of the shift herself, just to pass the time until supper at Grillby's.

The moment she walked through the door, she was struck with a wall of smoke, the smell of muddy slush, rust and wet fur, and the largest showing she'd seen at the pub since that human prisoner made news. It was a trial just to shove her way to the bar. Rez was the first to recognize her, and the wolf cleared one of the stools (swatting away a small white dog) to give her a spot.

"'ey, Succubus, you picked a hell of a night to join us." His smooth voice was nearly lost in the crowd. If not for her em-reading, she wouldn't have made out a word of it.

"The hell's all this racket about?" she asked.

Rudy bumped her other shoulder. "It's dog night! All dogs get the first drink free, on the house. Then it's half-price for every drink after."

"You're fucking kidding," she said.

"Yeah, every dog in Snowdin is here, just about. Some even call their family and friends from out of town every time Grillby does this, just to get in on the deal," Rez said, explaining the ballooned population of mutts.

The succubus looked for Grillby, who stayed busy waiting on the throng of canines. She scowled, realizing it was going to be a while before her turn to eat, and then spun a look at the nearest table, where a pack of dogs were playing a game that involved throwing a little white ball into mugs of ale and then drinking the spoils. A beagle and a brown pup scrambled after every missed shot to fetch the ball (with their mouths, which she wasn't sure was necessary, much less sanitary), knocking into another table where a clan wearing brown and white spots snarled across their poker cards. Doggo was laughing over a pile of chips, a fat mug in one hand and a smoldering dog biscuit dangling from the corner of his mouth. Her gaze crossed the swear jar on the corner of the bar, and she noticed that Malk was nowhere to be found. Her scowl took a smug turn into a smirk.

Something tugged her tail, and she was about to sweep her foot into someone's mangy face when she stopped short, realizing it was Sans. "Hey, jacka-" She then did a double-take. "The fuck are you wearing on your face?"

Sans grinned past her, to the barkeep that had appeared on the other side of the counter. Grillby studied the fake rubber snout and felt strips taped to Sans's skull and said, _'...Nice try.'_

Rez snorted. "Heh heh, sorry buddy, I tried it, too. Not even wolves count, apparently."

"oh well, can't blame a guy for tryin'." Sans shrugged, made no move to take off the ridiculous dog ears and nose, and then slapped the bar. "well hey, how 'bout your finest burg, and fries." He spared the succubus a look. "hell, double the fries. and a round of the wildfire for me and the gang, papyrus too. we're celebratin'."

"Papyrus?" Rudy and the succubus parroted, both spinning to find his brother's tall head emerging from the jungle of winter coats and snowy fur.

"'TIS I, FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE. I CAN'T BELIEVE I WAS TALKED INTO COMING HERE. THIS IS A MADHOUSE! I CAN'T EVEN—WHAT'S ATTACKING MY FOOT?" Papyrus bent towards the floor and disappeared. A moment later he came back up for air, holding a sausage-shaped pup by the scruff and frowning at the shoelace in its snout. He deposited the dog on a table, hobbled over to the bar and threaded his left boot back into place.

Sans offered him his usual chair, since all the others were packed. "glad you made it, bro." Papyrus reluctantly climbed onto the stool, treating every surface of the bar as if it were made of acid. He then sighed as Sans waved at him from the floor. "OH, YOU..." He picked up his brother and sat him on the countertop with ease. His brow creased as he looked Sans in the face. "WHAT'S THAT STUFF ON YOUR HEAD? IS THIS A COSTUME PARTY?"

Sans snickered and peeled off the disguise. "nah, just getting in the mood for dog night. no costume necessary to join the fun."

Papyrus's uneasy expression softened. "WELL GOOD, BECAUSE I'M ONLY DOING THIS FOR YOU. YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT ALL THIS..." His hand hovered over the bar, the rowdy crowd and the bottles of liquor arrayed on the shelves before settling his complaint on, "...GREASE!"

A little puff of flame issued from the top of Grillby's head as he broke out the shot glasses. If he was offended by Papyrus, she'd never know. Rez reached over to lay a large, friendly paw on Papyrus's shoulder. "Welcome to the gang, pal."

Papyrus looked dismayed. "OH, BUT I'M NOT EQUIPPED FOR GANG INITIATIONS. THAT'S TWICE IN ONE DAY I RUE NOT WEARING MY COOL SNEAKERS! FOR STYLE, THIS TIME."

Rez gave a hefty laugh. "I like your brother, Sans! His sense of humor's somethin' else."

"yeah, my brother's the coolest," Sans agreed, and something across their link told her that he was being completely sincere. She wondered what it was like, having a brother. ...Or any kind of family, much less someone she liked and admired as much as Sans and Papyrus did one another. She didn't suppose her brood-mates counted, and gods only knew where they were off dying in the name of the Archmage, now.

She wasn't sure whether it was the lighting in Grillby's or what, but Papyrus appeared to blush—another oddity for a skull. "O-OH HEY, WHAT ARE THESE?" he deflected, picking up one of the shots Grillby set out next to them. "SUCH TINY DRINKS. HOW QUAINT!"

Rudy sniggered into his sleeve. Rez picked up his glass, elbowed Papyrus and offered a grin that was toothy and jagged, yet warm. "You'll like it, my friend."

"you drink it in one big gulp, like cough syrup," Sans supplied, and quaffed his own drink to demonstrate. Papyrus squished a look of distaste. "YUCK, MEDICINE. BUT I'LL TRY IT, JUST THIS ONCE...!"

The succubus and Rudy lost their composure immediately, cackling hard at Papyrus's knee-jerk reaction to the fiery liquor. His bones rattled enough to be heard over the din of dogs. "OH DEAR GOD, IF I A HAD A THROAT IT WOULD BE ON FIRE, WHAT-" Papyrus shook his head fiercely. "THAT WAS PURE ALCOHOL, WASN'T IT? I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW... HOW TERRIBLE IT TASTES! WHY DO YOU DRINK IT?"

Rez and Sans's laughter was a little more sympathetic. "It's an acquired taste!" the former assured him. "you can thank us later," his brother said.

"Why are we celebrating, anyhow?" Rudy asked.

"well..." Sans hesitated, stretching a wide grin towards his brother. "want to tell 'em what we did today, paps?"

Papyrus shot up straight at the memory. "OH GOD, IT WAS TERRIBLE."

"you laughed."

"I DID N..." The denial on his face wavered. "I DID. BUT ONLY AFTER NOBODY GOT HURT!"

She sneered, delighted to take part in this. "What about the one that hit the tree and started spinning mid-air?"

That mere reminder set Sans to chuckling, while Papyrus covered his face with his hands. "NO, IT REALLY WASN'T FUNNY!"

"You can't keep us in suspense like this, guys," Rez prodded. Sans told a brief-and-brutal version of their assault on the lumber yard, managing one more joke about "limited cat-alities" while he was at it. Papyrus groaned throughout, Rudy and Rez looked astonished, and Grillby's expression was reserved as always, although he seemed to slow his work on the dishes the further the story progressed.

"Where did you get all those cats?" the hamster wondered.

 _'That is something I would like to know, myself,'_ Grillby joined in.

Sans leaned on the counter and turned a smug look to the ceiling. "trade secret."

"You have no trade, you shiftless slob," she derided him. She straightened with a fresh thought. "Wait, I can cuss now. Fucker! You're a fucker. Shit, that feels good."

Rudy's buck teeth gleamed under Grillby's firelight as his snout split with a grin. "Ahaha! That's right! You guys nipped that shit in the bud. Damn, so that's why I haven't seen Malk's sorry mug tonight! He must be mad as a bat."

"More like a cat on a hot tin roof," Rez remarked, and Sans gave him a slap on the back in appreciation.

"NO," Papyrus corrected. "THAT ROOF WASN'T HOT AT ALL. IT'S TOO COLD-" He then registered the cheesy grins surrounding him. "OH, IT'S A TURN OF PHRASE. VERY FUNNY."

 _'You're all terrible,'_ Grillby upbraided them, a slight lilt to his tone betraying his good humor.

"I cannot believe you guys pulled that off," Rudy said. He remained in a state of disbelief for the next hour, as Papyrus did his best to keep up with both the succubus's and his brother's drinking. Luckily for Papyrus, Sans was more dedicated to getting trashed on burgers and fries than alcohol. At some point Grillby prodded his wide little butt off the counter and into Papyrus's lap, and the bigger younger brother didn't look the least discomfited by the burden.

"SO WARM," Papyrus hummed, expression distorted in a pleased sort of way as he held Sans tightly. "MY BROTHER IS TOASTY!"

The hug squeezed a hiccup out of Sans. "- _hic_! sounds like i'm not the only one."

Rudy guffawed at that, holding up another bottle of booze. "We're all getting toasted tonight!"

 _Cuddly drunk skeletons, how_ , she blearily thought as she finished her third mug of that blueberry concoction she liked. "You two shits are adorable," she said, and a snippy part of her mind checked her against finding things cute again.

"WHAT? NNNO," Papyrus objected, swaying to face her. Sans leaned the other way, clutching the bar for balance before they both hit the floor. "YOU MUST MEAN 'FORMIDABLE.' THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS VERY FORMIDABLE! THE WORDS SOUND ALIKE, SO I UNDERSTAND YOUR MISTAKE."

"I meant what I said, you lanky bastard." She smiled and wilted against her neighbors, one arm slung around Papyrus's shoulders. "Great espers, I'm absolutely hammered—I mean, happy. Happy! I'm so glad I get to corrupt you both."

"Ah, seduction of the innocent," Rez sang. "Such a beautiful, terrible thing."

While she over-indulged on beer, Sans stuffed himself with grub—funnily, to similar effect. There was a dizzy, giddy thrumming across their link, even as Sans tugged on the waistband of his pants and winced. His shirt rode up as his gut slipped free, exposing a sliver of fizzling blue energy deep in his normally invisible belly. The sight was a little grotesque and impressive at once.

"ho boy," he huffed as he rubbed his bloated stomach, "tha's a lot of magic. thaaaaaa's a lot of— _hic_ —magic. yep, definitely a lot. gonna take forever to sleep this off. _hic_!"

"THAT'S YOUR FAULT FOR EATING LIKE AN UNRESTRAINED HOG," Papyrus snipped.

"oink," Sans snorted. "shoulda worn a pig face instead, huh?"

Papyrus wrapped his arms around his thicker brother and rested his chin on Sans's head. She suspected the snuggling's ulterior motive was holding Papyrus upright under the weight of his liquor. "NYEH! I THINK YOU NEED TO GO ON A DIET SOMETIME, BROTHER."

Sans looked hurt. "i think i need a bigger pair of sweatpants, 's what. don't figure i'd survive a real diet. it's just 'die' with a 't' on the end, y'know."

The succubus didn't even get the linguistics behind that joke, yet she laughed again—which invited a beer belch to claw out of her throat. Papyrus screwed up an affronted look and shoved her away. "UGH, THAT WAS ALMOST AS BAD AS MY BROTHER!"

Sans squirmed upright, rising to a challenge. "hang on, I can do be— _ **brraaaaaaaaaap**_!"

Rez and Rudy joined in laughing as Papyrus held his brother at arm's length. "THAT WASN'T AN INVITATION TO DISGUST ME, SANS!"

"heheheh..." Looking for a diversion from his gluttony, Sans called on the next person to walk by. "oh hey grillbz, show paps your trick."

Papyrus was immediately hooked. "WHAT? I LOVE TRICKS! CAN HE PULL A COIN FROM MY EAR?"

"you don't have ears. and nah, this is better. com'on grillby, he's never seen it."

Grillby stopped and fumbled with his spectacles. _'I shouldn't...'_

That funny, drunken aggression started to swell inside her. "Hah! What're you, bashful? Show us a trick, you flaming pussy."

Rudy drummed against the bar. "Do it do it do it do it!" It only took a moment to get Rez and a shaggy brown dog to join the chant.

Grillby silenced them with an upheld glove. _'All right.'_

The group watched eagerly as the barkeep grabbed a tumbler and three unlabeled bottles from the back shelf. He poured the three into the glass with measured grace, took the mixture and 'drank' it (as much as splashing liquid into his nondescript face constitutes drinking.) His innate fire magic caught it splendidly, the flame turning bright green, then red, and then blue, before fading back to his usual orange complexion. A dozen patrons cheered in appreciation.

"WOWIE! THAT'S IMPRESSIVE," Papyrus noted.

"yep, that's why grillby's a pro."

The barkeep's flame turned a shade of pink as he ducked back into work. Doggo suddenly appeared at the bar, looking surprised. "Papyrus! Didn't know you were here, pal. You owe us a rematch! Been weeks since that round'a Go Fish."

Papyrus balked at him. "WHAT? OH, NO, I WON'T HAVE ANY OF THAT CHEATING AGAIN!"

He didn't have a choice, as Doggo and that shaggy brown gentledog hooked Papyrus by each arm and dragged him towards their table. "W-WAIT, I DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR CARD GAMES! SANS, HELP...!"

Sans was shuffling for balance on the bar stool, since his brotherly support had been removed. "you tell 'em, bro," was his best advice.

"THAT'S NOT A HELP!" was the last thing heard from Papyrus before he was completely roped into playing with a group of eight dogs.

"huh, i take him out for one night and he already gets sucked into the wrong crowd," Sans lamented.

"He'll live. ...Maybe," she consoled him. It wasn't as if she were about to help, either. Helping required getting up, and she was far too content nursing her fourth mug and watching Sans fall asleep over his third plate of chili fries. Perhaps her mark's lethargy was contagious, she mused. Grillby pulled the plate away and roughly rubbed Sans's skull with a _huff_ that almost sounded affectionate.

"Tch," she clucked. "You go so soft on him. I bet he won't even pay for that shit. You two got some kinda history?"

 _'Nothing serious, if that's what you're implying.'_

Her grin bared a pointed canine, goading him. "It's something, though."

Grillby's flame wavered, and then he started speaking. _'You know...'_ He gestured towards the table where Papyrus was failing to bluff out a pair of cards. Doggo got fed up, grabbed his wrist and slammed it onto the table, exposing his hand with a yelp. _'When those two first showed up, they made quite a spectacle. Papyrus was... inquisitive. About everything. He walked into shops and people's houses and just asked them questions, with no sense of propriety or personal space. I remember one day he walked into my kitchen, asked me if the fish sticks have to swim in the bubbly brown water because they're not whole fish yet, and then stuck his hand in the deep fryer to pet one.'_

"Holy shit," she swore.

 _'Bone can't suffer third degree burns, fortunately. But I fire-proofed the door to the kitchen after that, just in case.'_ Reading her disparaging look, he continued, _'It was never that he was unintelligent. Papyrus has always been very clever, in his own way. It was just strange to us, at first. He was like a grown child—everything was new to him.'_

 _As it is with golems,_ she thought.

 _'Sans was with him much of the time. Sometimes he kept Papyrus out of trouble, and sometimes he encouraged it. The rest of the time, he kept to himself. Nobody spoke with him or knew anything about him, apart from what Papyrus would tell us. The first day he even set foot in here was because of Malk.'_

"Malk?"

Grillby nodded (it was one of his few expressions she could understand.) _'I was closing shop that night. Malk left ahead of me, and as he was going through the back-woods to his home, he found Sans in the snow. He had... fallen down.'_

He lingered on those words, drawing them out into something strange again, and she finally blurted out, "Why the hell do you people call it 'falling down'? The fuck is that?"

The angle of his spectacles shifted into something quizzical, although he was hard to look at directly after four mugs. _'When monsters die, we turn to dust. But sometimes, monsters get sick or lose their magic for other reasons, and they simply fall down. I suppose on the surface they would call it... a coma, maybe. It's different. It's rare that one recovers from it, all the same.'_

She'd suspected it meant something like that. "Okay, I guess. So, Malk found him like that."

 _'Yes. He brought him back here, where I could warm him up while Malk went to find Papyrus. I suppose if Malk had not found him that night, no one would have. It was a remote trail, and the snow would have covered his dust overnight.'_

She considered that. It seemed to match a certain story she'd heard from Papyrus, so she didn't doubt it was true. _So he's saying Sans owes Malk his life?_ The thought was enough to sober her a bit, but not enough to make her feel guilty. _Whatever. He's still a dillweed._

 _'Sans came by a few days later, to thank us. I suspect Papyrus twisted his arm. I fed him a burger, and he hasn't fully paid off his tab since.'_

Sans picked his head off the bar with a yawn. "and i was a fat and happy skeleton ever after. you're killin' me with the sap, grillbz."

A dog covered in patches (both in his fur and on his trench coat) waved an empty flagon. "Hey! You know what we're dying from? Dehydration! It's a damn drought over here."

Grillby sighed and drifted back to work. On his way, he reached over and firmly pressed Sans's head back onto the bar. _'Eavesdroppers hear no good of themselves, you know.'_

Sans snickered into the polished wood. "is it eavesdropping if you're doing it right on top of me?" Grillby left him alone to tend to his clientele, and Sans watched him go, rubbing a spot of ketchup that had smeared across his cheek. He licked his fingers, leaned towards a floppy-eared patron and rapped the bar in front of him. "hey buddy, knock knock."

The dog startled, seemed to recognize Sans, and then relaxed with a laugh. "Oh man, it's you. Yeah, I'll bite. Who's there?"

"doughnut."

"Doughnut who?"

Sans nodded at the small white dog lapping from a dish below the bar. "doughnut pull that dog's tail, or he'll bite you!"

The succubus groaned while the recipient of the joke chortled. "Combining your love of food and stupid jokes again, I see. That one was pretty half-baked," she teased him.

He turned a look of coy delight back to her. "hey, there's nothing undercooked about my jokes. i'm just getting _fired up_."

She rolled her eyes and turned away, before she got stuck quibbling. "I'm sure."

Sans moved on to harass the next customer with his sense of humor, albeit with as little moving as possible—so basically, anyone within earshot was a target. She was about to signal Grillby for another mug to drown out the cheap laughter, but then she caught sight of someone pushing their way towards the bar. The crest of red feathers atop a bulbous head helped her realize it was Malk. She smirked, torn between ignoring him and taunting him, and waited to read his mood before acting.

Unfortunately, that hesitation cost her the chance to warn Sans. The skeleton was oblivious until Malk stormed up behind him, yanked back the hood of his jacket, stuffed something inside, and said in a low voice and high dudgeon, "You missed one, _bitch_."

What happened next unfolded in slow motion—or, she was so drunk it might as well have.

The first thing to get everyone's attention was the word 'bitch.' It plucked a chord in every dog's sensitive ear that had their heads swiveling towards Malk, in varying degrees of interest and insult, just in time to watch Sans flail backwards onto the floor. On the way down he kicked his bar stool into the white dog drinking from a bowl, who yelped and bumped into another chair, causing its occupant to jump and spill his beer over a set of cards on the table Papyrus was playing, ruining Doggo's hand.

Sans scrambled onto his knees, batting at something worming under his coat like it was a hot poker, until its fuzzy orange face broke free around the collar and _meowed_. The pupils and nostrils of every dog dilated, suddenly as rapt as a school of piranhas at a drop of blood in the tank. There was a long, collectively drunken _gasp_ around the bar, and as all eyes bore into him and the feline stuck in his coat, Sans's fixed grin melted into a look of dread.

What happened after _that_ unfolded very, very quickly.

Doggo flipped the table in a rage, mugs and cards splattering onto the floor. Two of the players had already made a lunge for the cat and were out of harm's way, but a third was knocked into a growing puddle of beer and broken glass. A fourth was bowled onto an adjacent table and then smashed in the knees with the chair that shot out from under Papyrus as he bolted towards his brother. " _SANS_!"

The space Sans occupied became a blurry pile of snarling, slobbering fur in a heartbeat, the smallest dogs in the pub getting to the action the quickest. The succubus could barely follow what, who and where, yet one moment Sans was at the bottom of the heap, and the next he was clambering out of an empty booth and towards the door, the cat stapled to his skull as if it were a life preserver off a sinking ship.

Papyrus fell on the dog pile the next instant, belatedly noticing his brother's escape and clubbing a pomeranian with a conjured bone. The little dogs scattered, dazed, yet before Papyrus got his bearings he was struck in the face with an airborne dog from across the bar. Doggo took a punch from a husky he'd nearly crushed with the table, starting a fist-fight that escalated into a four-way brawl once the husky's friends got invested. Three dogs sitting in a booth got the idea to throw their drinks (and every drink on the next table) into the storm, but most shots went high and wide, raining cocktails across the bar. Rudy huddled by the jukebox, holding his jacket up around his head to buffet against shrapnel, until one rogue bottle burst against the cabinet, shooting sparks that shorted out the pub music indefinitely. If the succubus didn't know any better, she'd say Malk had the ability to teleport as well, because next she saw he was ducking behind the safe cover of the bar, just in time for a husky to be thrown over the counter and into the wall. The dog was knocked out on impact, cracking an entire shelf of liquor in half and sending bottles tumbling down around him.

The succubus dove to the ground before becoming the next casualty. She spied the tail of Sans's coat as it slipped out the door, but so did every dog on the local sentry squad, which had refused to give up the scent of cat. Dogamy gave an unintelligible battle cry, picked up the pole axe he'd used on his shift and threw it at the nearest window, shattering it. Doggo knocked a tooth out of someone with an elbow jab, picked up a pair of daggers, and kicked through the door in pursuit. Greater Dog threw his entire self—massive plate armor and all—through another window, peppering the sidewalk with warmly-toned glass shards. Two more dogs from the squad then barreled through the destroyed storefront and after Sans.

The succubus vaulted over a living pin-cushion of hair and bone (many of those belonging to Papyrus) and staggered onto the street. She didn't linger to catch Grillby's reaction to the cat-induced bedlam, yet one glimpse of his body language said that he was livid.

She stopped in a swath of churned-up snow and looked for the direction the stampede of canines had headed. She then broke into a run, following the trail around a street corner and deeper into town. Just as she passed a narrow alley, one of its indigo shadows reached out and sucked her in. Her fists and the loudest curse in her arsenal were about to be unleashed before she realized the hand clamped around her arm belonged to Sans.

" _Titty-fucking Shiva_ ," she swore quietly, stepping back. "How did you lose all those dogs?"

"took a shortcut," Sans replied, as if it were all natural to him. He was still grappling with the cat, gingerly trying to pry its tiny claws out of his eyes. "ow-ow-ow, a little help?"

She grabbed the pitiful thing by the scruff and ripped it off his skull like a band-aid. Sans made a sound that her em-reading could have translated into eight different swear words.

"You're welcome," she said flatly, and set the cat on the ground.

Sans rubbed his sore scalp and turned his grin up to her. "heh. did you come after me?"

"What? No, I..." _suppose I did, without even thinking about it._ "I just wanted to see where this shit-show was going. It got fucking crazy in there. Grillby looked pissed-off."

"about as pissed as malk, apparently," he noted, and lent a sympathetic look to the cat. It sat in a heap of shock and then found its wits, dashing away.

Then, a dog barked. The cat stopped short, abruptly turned and skittered back up Sans's legs and into his coat. "no no no no—arrrgh!" the skeleton wailed as his short arms fumbled to catch it.

The succubus looked to the head of the alley and found the culprit: that small white dog had found them. It hopped in place and yapped excitedly. She put her meanest foot forward. " _Scram_ , you little shit."

"It's over here, guys!" Too late. Five sentries, a family of pomeranians, two huskies and three generally shaggy dogs swarmed behind the little white dog, crowding the dead-end alley with heaving panting and growling. Every one of them was bright-eyed, hungry and slavering-drunk.

Sans picked a prickly paw out of one of his sockets and slowly focused his eye-lights on the assembly. "...uh-"

"Fuck," she finished for him.

Lesser Dog charged in first, and three more dogs sprang to life behind him. The succubus drew her leg back, prepared to punt a bitch clean into the next block, but then a volley of short bones cut across their path and knocked Lesser Dog off his feet. Sans recognized the attack pattern right away and called out, "bro!"

Papyrus skidded into view, breaking up the circle of mutts and hefting a long, magically-produced bone like a staff. He held it between himself and the throng and said with an impressive volume of authority, "HOLD IT, MONGREL FRIENDS! THAT'S AN INNOCENT FELINE AND MY LESS-THAN-INNOCENT BROTHER YOU'RE ABOUT TO CHOW ON!"

"paps they're kind of riled-up and shit-faced," Sans started to warn him. "i don't think they're gonna listen to reason."

"NONSENSE, THERE HAS TO BE A NON-VIOLENT SOLUTION WE CAN ALL A-" Lesser Dog sank his teeth into the bone weapon while two of the smaller dogs bit down on Papyrus's shins. "ACK! " He teetered off guard and tried to shake the dogs off. The sudden movement stirred the onlookers into a frenzy, and then half a dozen more jaws, daggers and an axe were pouring into the alley.

"Fuck it!" the succubus asserted, and ran into a fight. One dog's muzzle gave a satisfying crack against her knuckles while two yipping runts connected with her foot. The axe-happy one made a chopping leap at her back, and she had to roll out of the way before her wing was taken out of commission again. She bounced onto her hands, sent Dogamy sailing into a trash pail with a bucking kick, and then jumped back up in time to snatch one of Doggo's wrists and twist the dagger out of his hand. Doggo yelped, snarled, and swung his other dagger towards her neck. Reflexively she blocked his arm with her elbow and swiped her free claws across his face. Doggo stumbled back, screaming and pawing at his eyes.

"NO NO NO! THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF NON-VIOLENT!" Papyrus swatted a rabid pair off his heels and then wrested his long bone back from Lesser Dog. While the succubus wove around two snapping jaws to land a spinning kick on Greater Dog's flank, Papyrus took Sans by the arm and broke out of the alley. "IT'S TIME TO RUN, BROTHER!"

With his shorter legs, Sans skated behind Papyrus almost comically, feet only connecting with the ground every other step. The succubus bought just enough time for the pair to disappear around the next street corner, and then some dog made a sloppy, rumbling noise that loosely translated to, "The cat's getting away!" The pack immediately gave up sparring with a half-dragon and honed in on the fresh trail—they launched after their quarry so swiftly that the succubus was swept to the ground. She rolled upright, rubbed her haunches and cursed, yet they were already gone.

"I gotta catch those big hairy dingleberries...!" she muttered as she unfurled her wings. She wasn't too drunk to try wind magic, right? She didn't have her crystal charm to channel the foreign energy, but brawling in the icy streets worked wonders for her sobriety, so it seemed to balance out. Her wings heaved against one strong magic draught, and then picked her up and over some rooftops.

It wasn't hard to find the skeletons. They'd been backed into another dead-end road that opened to the river. Still more dogs were feeding into the mob from side-alleys, making at least two dozen strong, and lights were flickering on in the surrounding houses as Snowdin woke up to see what was going down. Sans had hunkered down, face planted in the snow and limbs tucked into his jacket like a cowering tortoise. Papyrus stood over him and swung a bone like a sword, keeping a few bouncing pups at bay. The rest of the pack simmered around them, all eyes glued to the cat that was still clinging relentlessly to Sans.

She circled the block once, tipped her wings into a swoop and aimed for that guy with the axe...

 _Crash_. ...and planted her feet in some flowers. The pot shattered into a mess of soil and snow, and she felt a clay shard rip open her knee. She plucked herself out of the flora and realized she successfully got everyone's attention, at least.

"I'm not drunk! I fucking meant to do that," she said.

The dog pack blinked at her, either not convinced or not comprehending. Sans seized the distraction by tearing the cat off his head (again, with another curse she couldn't translate.) He then—with the most range of motion she'd ever seen from him—took three long strides towards the river and pitched the cat into it. The feline screamed for a good twenty feet before plunging into black ice.

Every dog startled and their jaws dropped, distraught. A few dashed to the riverbank, but then stopped short of getting wet. Papyrus looked cross.

"SANS! CATS ARE ALLERGIC TO WATER!"

Sans huffed and rubbed the hairline scratches covering his bones. "and i'm allergic to getting eaten by dogs. somethin' had to give."

A chorus of barking alerted the group to the cat's survival. The pack tripped over themselves to follow the orange fur-ball as it clawed for purchase on the opposite bank. It escaped the water and kept running, along the skirt of a storehouse and behind a couple of trash bins before squeezing underneath a dumpster.

As the cat slipped out of sight, the dumpster let out a strange... cry. It sounded like it came from an unholy fusion of animal and mineral, warbling and distorted behind the dumpster's steel plates, and every dog's ears pricked to tune it in. The succubus watched a singular, ravenous look ripple across the mob, and then they all galloped closer. Even Greater Dog's massive form loped after them like a runaway train with one wheel too big, kicking snow and turf across the road.

The succubus baffled at the noise. "What in the great elder dragon's ballsack was that?"

Papyrus cringed all over, as if crushed with a thought. He turned a wide look of disdain towards his brother. "SANS."

A bead of sweat gathered on the side of Sans's frozen expression. "yeah?"

A disquieted tone trickled out of Papyrus. "WHEN I ASKED YOU TO REMOVE ALL THOSE CATS, WHERE DID YOU PUT THEM?"

"...uh." His eye-lights darted around the ground, as if he could cobble an explanation that Papyrus would buy from snow and a broken pot of hydrangeas. He then looked up and held out his hands. "okay, hear me out. you remember that show, the catillac cats?"

If anything, this distressed Papyrus all the more. "SANS..."

"they lived in the dump, right? one of 'em even had, like, a mansion made out of a jumbo jet."

"SANS...!"

"so i figure, hey, cats love the dump. and what's the quickest ticket to the dump? a dumpster. am i right or what?"

"SANS, YOU DID NOT PUT FIFTY CATS INTO A DUMPSTER!"

Sans tugged his collar and waved that notion off, nonchalance failing to mask the guilty anxiety—the succubus could feel it across their link so hard it was making her nauseous. Hell, Papyrus could probably _smell it_ , she thought. "noooo, of course not."

A beat.

"...i could only fit, like, thirty in there."

If anyone could _melt with horror_ , Papyrus looked ready to do it. The succubus whirled around just in time to watch Greater Dog up-end the entire dumpster with brute strength. The lid crashed open and a sea of cats spilled out, overwhelming the dog mob and dispersing into the surrounding neighborhood like a tiny herd of deranged calico cattle.

"Shiver me mother fuckers...!" Many of the little beasts swarmed their way, and the succubus danced around both the deluge of cats and the manic dogs trying to give chase. She hoisted herself up the nearest light pole to get clear of the carnage, and could only watch as the destruction fanned out in all directions.

Lesser Dog and three cohorts wrecked the tidy tables outside the cafe, a picket fence was bulldozed by Greater Dog, and a band of shaggy mutts obliterated a frozen treat stand that three cats were trying to take refuge in. Residents and store-owners started to rush out, shouting complaints, yet it only invited six cats and four dogs into people's open doorways, bringing the riot into their living rooms. Altogether it sounded like a storm of mewing, yapping and gnashing teeth that cascaded across town like a foul breeze across a field of echo flowers.

Papyrus was on his knees, jaw hanging so low she thought it might drop off. "OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD. THIS IS A DISASTER." He clambered to his feet, picking up his resolve. "WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING! THE TOWN'S GETTING DESTROYED!"

"The goddamn flood gate's already open," she said. "The hell you gonna do about this clusterfuck now?"

Sans was sitting in the middle of the road, blinking mutely at the wreckage in progress. Papyrus yanked him to his feet and shook him like a rag doll. "SANS, WE'RE GOING TO CATCH ALL THESE CONFOUNDED CATS!"

The rough treatment rattled Sans out of his shock. "h-how?"

"Malk still has a bunch of fishing nets?" she offered lamely.

"NYEH, NETS! YES, SANS, YOU'RE GOING TO GET NETS. THE FORTUNE TELLER AND I WILL TRY TO CORRAL THESE CATS!" Papyrus vigorously pointed into the air, punctuating the plan. "YES, WE'LL SAVE EVERYONE AN-"

A _whisk_ of cyan cut Papyrus off, inches from his nasal cavity. He and the succubus followed its path and discovered Sans suddenly a dozen feet away, pinned to the wall of a house by his sleeve with a five-foot lance of magic.

 **"NNNNNNNNGGGAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"**

The three of them whipped a look to the rooftops, where— _Oh god DAMNIT_ —the succubus's psychotic, fish-finned rival was poised atop a chimney, another magic spear in hand. For a moment, Papyrus was as impressed as he was alarmed. "CAPTAIN UNDYNE! YOU GOT HERE REALLY QUICKLY!"

She beamed hideously at him (the succubus thought something about her looked odd, but she couldn't put her finger on it.) "Of course I did! The trouble you guys caused stank so bad, even the fish were complaining!"

Papyrus reeled back and stammered, "I-I CAN EXPLA-"

"Can it!" He was interrupted once again. "I don't want to hear a damn thing! I'm going to run every last one of these stinking hair-balls out of town myself! And THEN-" Undyne levelled her spear at him and _snarled_ , her toothy visage suddenly more intimidating than every dog on the planet. "We'll talk about your punishment!"

"B-BUT WE DIDN'T MEAN TO-"

A hailstorm of spears buried Papyrus's objection, one of them skewering his scarf and driving the skeleton to the ground like a spindly nail. "YIPES!"

The succubus made a matching noise (albeit more manly) and twisted out of dodge, but only well enough for one spear to rip through the webbing of her wings and fasten her to the sidewalk, as well. The cyan magic was like a bolt of cold lightning that left her thrashing, unable to either grasp or resist it. " _Gahhh_...! Damn crazy bitch!"

"Don't any of you knuckleheads move a muscle! I'll be back for your sorry hides," Undyne proclaimed, and then leapt away like a superhero into the night. The succubus and skeleton brothers were left no choice but to wait, pinned to the spot like a bunch of bugs under glass.

Sans dangled off the ground, trapped in a shrug. At length, he spoke first. "...this isn't how i meant to _hang out_ with you guys tonight, heh."

"SANS NO," Papyrus whimpered, looking crushed and crumpled in the snow. His brother was mercifully quiet after that.

"This fucking hurts," the succubus grumbled to no one in particular. The magic spear wasn't agonizing, per se—amazingly it didn't even pierce the skin—but it left her buckled in an awkward position that frostbite from the cold street wasn't helping.

Undyne made quick work of the cats, spurring them with volleys of spears until every last one scurried out of city limits. Some fled in the direction of Waterfall, some disappeared into the woods, and a particularly unlucky group was herded straight into the river, cyan rods rammed up their tiny tail-pipes. The dogs weren't treated much better, each one bludgeoned into submission by Captain Undyne personally. The succubus could hear their demoralized yelps and yips at the end of every punch and suplex.

At last, after what felt like the longest hour of her life, the bedraggled sentry squad was marched down the road to join the succubus and her hapless cohorts. Undyne had the sobered mutts squat in line on the sidewalk, and then she stood in the middle of the street and waved her arm, dispelling her remaining magic. The succubus groaned in relief, Sans hit the ground with a soft _plop_ ,and Papyrus's vertebrae crackled as he sat up.

"You dumbasses!" the captain addressed the lot. "Assault on a puppy, destruction of property, drinking on duty—god. damn. cats! You should all be ashamed of yourselves! You're a disgrace to Snowdin, never mind the squad! Aren't you supposed to be _protecting_ the town, not trashing it up?"

Lesser Dog and Greater Dog hung their heads and whined. Dogamy wrung his pole-arm in his paws miserably. Doggo rocked in place, huffing and scrubbing his face. Undyne snapped a feral look to the skeleton edging along the wall, trying not-too-subtly to escape. "I didn't say you were free to go, nerd!" With a snap of the fingers she conjured another spear and flung it at Sans.

This time it caught the hood of his jacket before sticking him to the wall again. "urk...!"

Undyne stomped up to him and jabbed his flabby side with a sharp finger. The succubus _almost_ felt it, and winced for him. "I don't even know how all this started, but I'm willing to bet every clam shell in goddamn Waterfall that YOU had something to do with it!"

Sans wriggled in place and chuckled, looking positively sheepish. "eheh, now what makes you say that...?"

She didn't bother pressing him for answers, instead turning on his brother. "And Papyrus! Your brother's a lazy, conniving disaster, so I'm not surprised at him, but I'm sure as hell disappointed in you. You're better than this!"

Papyrus continued to wither under her scolding. "I'M SORRY, CAPTAIN UNDYNE..."

And then Undyne's ire rolled onto the dragon-lady, as if she were just noticing her presence. Before the succubus could dare ask _what the fuck are you looking at,_ the point of a spear was digging under her chin. "You!"

The succubus only succeeded at glowering right back at her. "The fuck did I do?"

"Brought all this trouble to town, is what! You've been a pain in the ass since ya got here! I knew I shouldn't have trusted you, and now look what's happened...!"

"You can't pin all this horseshit on me!" she shrieked back. "Those fucking cats weren't even mine!"

"Oh yeah?" Undyne pressed the spear an inch closer, sending paralyzing prickles down her spine and severing her breath. "Then whose were they?"

"They...!" _were Sans's, every last one._ The words died in her throat. Her gaze skipped to Papyrus, who was looking at her with such an expression of _earnest worry_ that she couldn't even bring herself to look at Sans in order to get angry enough to sell him out (Sans was probably wearing the same shitty, infuriating grin he wore for all occasions.)

Suddenly, the odd detail about the captain struck her, like a coin hitting the bottom of a well of alcohol, exhaustion and anger. "Hey!" the succubus blurted out. "The fuck happened to your eye?"

"OH," Papyrus forgot to act subdued for a moment, curiosity drawn to the black leather patch over Undyne's left eye. "WHAT HAPPENED? DID YOU GET HURT?"

Undyne withdrew her spear and touched her face in a flash of self-consciousness. She then shook her head and sputtered incredulously, "Phhhb, me? Hurt? Never! It takes more than some trigger-happy human to make mince-meat outta me!"

"Human?" The dogs lifted their heads, wide-eyed with intrigue (even Doggo, although his eyes were puffy and weeping, forcing him to squint.) Papyrus looked positively star-struck. "YOU FOUGHT A HUMAN?"

Undyne shoved the spear into the ground so hard it exploded like a thunderclap, making the group shrink back. "Hey, stay focused! I'm not done lecturing you spazzes! Who do you think's gonna pay for all these damages, huh? I'm gonna have people crawling up my butt for weeks until this mess is fixed! I've got half a mind to fire the lot'a ya, but then there wouldn't be any sentries left, so..."

Undyne swept a critical look over the group, and then her fins splayed with a devilish grin. "That's it! A drunk tank!"

Dogamy's heavy brows knitted into a wary look. "We don't have a tank...?"

Undyne stamped a foot (for an instant, the succubus saw a resemblance to Papyrus.) "No, stupid! I'm talking about throwing you all in the pokey!"

"our town has a 'pokey'?" Sans had to ask, and this question bought Papyrus the courage to stand up and wave his arm with an offering.

"OH, CAPTAIN UNDYNE, I HAVE A SHED WE COULD USE! IT'S GOT PLENTY OF ROOM, AND THE SUPPORT BEAMS WOULD MAKE EXCELLENT BARS, WITH A FEW MODIFICA..."

The hard stares coming from the succubus, his brother and two of the four dogs (one of which didn't have working eyes, but damned if that didn't stop Doggo from glaring mightily) were what made Papyrus trail off. He ruefully lowered his hand.

"...OH. I SHOULDN'T BE VOLUNTEERING THAT INFORMATION, SHOULD I?"


	25. Ribbed and Caged

Papyrus's shed didn't have heat, of course. Nor blankets, nor anything more accommodating than wooden beams and floor planks. Sleeping on tough surfaces wasn't a challenge (she'd taken perches in caves and trees before, as dragons were wont), but she really detested the cold—it was one more thing she wasn't going to miss about Snowdin.

She sat in a corner, rubbing warmth into her knees and elbows and wondering whether she'd be able to find her cloak again, after Grillby's coat rack was used for a makeshift lance (Papyrus looked almost knightly with it, if only the scene were less ridiculous than a skeleton in a bar brawl.) Between corralling cats, punching dogs and getting arrested by the town fish, it had been a long day, and right now her warm, worn cloak was sorely missed.

Dogamy, Doggo, Lesser Dog and Greater Dog made a miserable pile in the next corner. Dogamy was passed-out, tongue rolled out onto the floor and leaving a growing puddle of drool. Doggo had taken a slice of his shirt and wrapped it around his eyes for a bandage. He sat against a support beam and growled under his breath over the lack of "smokes and a phone call," whatever that meant in the context of imprisonment. Sans was using Lesser Dog's chain mail for a pillow, although it more looked like he had tripped backwards over the hung-over canine and decided not to get up again.

Papyrus oscillated between sulking and pacing, his rubber galoshes bound to carve a rut out of the floorboards. When not gazing longingly at the door (as if Undyne were going to change her mind and barge in at any moment, gushing with forgiveness), he was spending his jail time glaring at Sans. His scolding looks might've been effective if Sans were even watching him back, rather than laying insensate on the floor.

The younger brother's anger towards Sans was, of course, fully justified—yet if the succubus saw Malk again, she was going to let her knuckles have a good, hard talk with his face.

"I can't believe," she said, raising her voice to compete with Doggo's grousing. "That stupid, candy-headed douche-nozzle brought one of those mother-fucking cats into a bar filled with god damn ass-drunk dogs."

Greater Dog lolled his fat head in her direction and blinked, beady eyes not focused enough to look threatening. Doggo gave a snort of contempt.

If her comment didn't ameliorate Papyrus's foul mood, it at least shifted the blame. He quit staring daggers at Sans and tested the door again. The handle rattled, to no avail. "CURSES. IF I EVER GET OUT OF THIS SHED, I'M GOING TO PUT THE LOCK ON THE INSIDE, SO THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN AGAIN!"

With no comments on that proposal, the shed filled with more uneasy silence. She closed her senses and slipped into herself, striving for some form of sleep in this oversized doghouse, but her meditation was broken when Sans emitted a long, plaintive noise.

 _I was close to INNER PEACE, cocksucker,_ her mind railed back, and she joined Papyrus's team in the glare-a-thon. Gauging by the dim pangs across their link, Sans was nursing an aching belly and stinging ribs at the same time. He rolled onto his side, hugging himself. "ohhhhhhh man, running. fuck running. fuck everything to do with running. i'm never running again."

"SANS, LANGUAGE!"

Sans winced, but it was hard to tell whether he was struck by the rebuke or wallowing in his own suffering. "ow. fuck. nope. don't care." ...Well, that answered that.

Papyrus's teeth clacked into a deeper frown, but he didn't press further. She looked at Sans again and— _Yeah, I wouldn't put a lot of stress on that human soul you stole, you freak,_ came unbidden into her head, acrid enough to make her recoil from her own thoughts.

Sans jerked forward, _almost_ sitting up as his eye beads nailed her with another particular, inscrutable _look_. There was a burble of something _really_ dark across their link, a cocktail of distress and anger, but then a second later it was snuffed under a blanket of drowsiness and dull pain. He grunted and dropped his head to the floor.

She didn't know why she even had that thought. She didn't particularly care how or why Sans got that mutilated _thing_ passing off for his soul. Maybe he scavenged it from some human whom had fallen underground and bashed their head on the rocks. Maybe he straight-up slew a man for it (she had difficulty picturing this, since it required some level of effort.) Maybe it was self-defense, or maybe it was forced on him—maybe the shady man had something to do with it (which might explain the connection between the two.) She certainly had no reason to care about the fate of some pathetic human she never met.

It occurred to her that she might just be upset at the way he lied and concealed it more than anything. Well, she supposed he never technically _lied_ , since she never technically _asked_ , but... Hell, why take the time and care to warn her about _her_ half-human soul after what _he_ had done? Wasn't he a damn hypocrite? Monsters didn't make any sense.

 _'ow, there goes another one.'_ She was about to ask 'Another what?' but then held her tongue, ears catching the silence enveloping the room. Sans had only said that across their link, likely unintentionally. It was a little interesting and a little disturbing, how clearly their thoughts were transmitting, now. Still wondering what he meant, she drew her fingers across her breastbone, focused on the thrumming ache they shared and tried to imagine what caused it—the taste of coppery cyan in the dark, like their last night together, like ripping sutures out of a still-beating heart, like... _oh_.

That was exactly it.

She looked at one brother, and then the other, and realized something Sans had probably thought about a thousand times, while Papyrus never once. _Papyrus is going to out-live him by a long shot... hundreds of years, even._ Golems just went on and on, nigh-indefinitely, but that sketchy, delicate thing that Sans carried... There went another stitch, and she was left a little more hollow—she didn't like these shared feelings.

She decided to tune out their link from now on.

Papyrus started pacing again, gladly distracting her. At length he stopped, drew a breath long enough to inflate into a determined stance, and started hammering on the door with his fist. "CAPTAIN UNDYNE! PLEASE HEAR ME OUT! CAAAAAAPTAIN!"

The dog pile writhed and whined in unison, the skeleton's shrill tone torture to so many sensitive ears. " _Christ_ ," Doggo snarled, and she had half a mind to ask what kind of swear _that_ was supposed to be, but the other half was getting a sickening headache.

"papyrus, please," Sans entreated. "what are you doing?"

"I HAVE TO SPEAK WITH CAPTAIN UNDYNE! SURELY SHE CAN BE REASONED WITH AFTER A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP, DON'T YOU THINK?"

"it's three a.m. nobody's had a good night's sleep, and undyne's probably at her house."

"OH." Papyrus only considered the latter. "DO YOU THINK IF I YELL LOUD ENOUGH, SHE'LL HEAR ME FROM HERE?"

Greater Dog and Dogamy _yelped_ at the thought, and Doggo snapped, " _No_ , you psychopath."

Sans waited a beat before saying, "...maybe, if the echo flowers catch it."

"Shut your fuck up," the succubus cut him down. "No more yelling, for shit's sake."

Papyrus wilted into the last empty corner, defeated. He looked at the succubus with an apologetic slant. "I'M SORRY TO SAY THIS, FORTUNE-TELLER, BUT I THINK YOU'RE GETTING COAL AGAIN THIS YEAR." He looked back at his brother and resumed glowering. "...I THINK WE ALL ARE, ACTUALLY."

"...sorry," Sans uttered, finally taking a shred of the blame.

Papyrus sighed harshly through his entire face. "YOU SHOULD BE. THIS HORRIBLE SITUATION IS ALL YOUR FAULT, BROTHER! THOSE POOR CATS, THESE POOR DOGS, THAT POOR BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENT..." His voice started wobbling, and— _What the fuck, is this skeleton crying?_ "...M-MY ILLUSTRIOUS CAREER IN THE ROYAL GUARD, ALL SQUASHED BEFORE IT EVEN BEGAN! UNDYNE WILL NEVER LET ME JOIN NOW, FOR EVER AND EVER." He drew up his kneecaps and buried his face in his arms with a loud, disjointed sob.

She gawked at the emotional outburst, while Sans just looked astonished. After a minute of nothing but waterworks in Papyrus's corner, she tested a glance at the older brother and found only a muddled expression, aimed dead at the ceiling. He then sighed as well, closed his eyes and did what he did best: went to sleep.

"Tch," she scoffed. It actually wasn't a terrible idea. She relaxed and tried to meditate some more.

The next she blinked, it was dawn. At some point in her dozing, that little white runt of a dog had infiltrated the shed and settled in to gnaw on Sans's shin-bone. The rest of the dogs were moaning in their sleep, probably in the opening throes of hangovers.

She stood, stretched, and prodded her mark with her clawed toes. "Hey buttwipe, you're turning into a chew toy."

Sans's groggy voice drifted up to her. "hnn... do i still smell like cat?"

"Probably," she said. The entire shed smelled like over-ripe armor buried under a brewery and a metric ton of _dog_ , so she wasn't about to discern a feline's musk through the rabble.

"cool." He didn't budge. The succubus shrugged and turned away, letting the mutt have its way with him.

She checked on Papyrus, but the way he stayed curled into his own corner discouraged prying. _Never seen a full set of bones mope like that before_ , she thought. A follow-up thought almost birthed a spoken, 'stop being a huge pussy,' but a rogue memory painfully close to having a life's dream crushed in a single night held her back.

 _You'll never be a Peacekeeper, and he'll never be a royal guard._...She left him alone.

That was the last quiet moment she got before the door to the shed flew open like buckshot, hitting the wall so hard that splinters shot from the hinges. Everyone—bones and plate-mail and all—clattered awake in time to witness Undyne standing in the threshold.

"Captain!"

"Captain...!"

"Cap!"

"Arf!" The dog squad barked into rank.

"Good morning, chumps!" she bellowed, her gnarled grin bearing down on the group a little too maliciously for _morning cheer_. "I hope you degenerates got some good sleep, because I sure did!"

Lesser Dog dragged his rump into the far corner and started retching.

Behind the succubus, Papyrus rose to feeble attention. "C-CAPTAIN UNDYNE, PLEASE, I CAN EXPLAIN ABOUT LAST NIGHT-"

"Shut up! I said I didn't want to hear it! I don't know, and I don't care! You know what's about to happen, though?" She leaned into the succubus's face and sneered, "The lot'a you are gonna work your butts off!"

"Work? I don't work for you people!" the succubus cried.

Undyne snorted out a laugh. "Hah, you do now! It's called _community service_ , and not a single one'a you whelps are gonna rest until every fencepost, storefront and trash bin you messed up is fixed up and paid off!"

The succubus's face screwed up with the hardest, most outrageous objection she could muster, yet before the litany of swear words spilled out, Undyne stepped into Papyrus's personal space. "And Papyrus! Since your goddamn brother can't be trusted with a toothpick anymore, much less a hammer and nail, he's gonna stay under arrest until you-"

"i'll do it."

Everyone in the room shifted to look at Sans, who looked remarkably composed for someone with a small dog's jaws fixed to his ankle.

"Hmph." Undyne crossed her arms under a fang-filled smirk. "You volunteering? This a joke, funny man?"

Sans buried his hands in his pockets and met her molten yellow gaze. "nope. papyrus didn't bring those cats in, i did. he came to grillby's to stop me, but it was too late. i'll do whatever job you got lined up for him, if you'll take this off his record."

Papyrus's whole expression drew a blank. "SANS..."

Undyne cocked her head (her neck made an unnerving _crackle_ ) and sharpened a needling look at the stumpy skeleton. Then she shook with laughter. "Heh! Why the hell not? I'll buy this one!" She stooped to lour over Sans, which was enough to scare away the little white dog. It abandoned Sans's leg and skittered out the door. "If you start slackin', though, I'm gonna be all over your ass like _white on rice_ , you feel me?"

"ok."

"And you're gonna set the Boarstons' picket fence nice and straight, like it was before!"

"ok."

"And it's gonna need a white-wash, too! That means _white_ —none of those wacky damn colors Papyrus used on the last sign he painted!"

"IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FESTI-"

"You're supposed to shut up!" she shut down Papyrus yet again.

" _ **okay**_ ," Sans repeated, with sudden force that tempered the whole room. Their fishy warden met the dark, cross look framing his skeletal smile, and hesitated. The succubus didn't need to be reading any link to get the message: _stop disrespecting my brother._

Undyne stood back, hands on her hips, and then... grinned. Her countenance lit up with a sort of _proud mirth_ that would mystify the succubus forever. "Haha, right! That's perfect." She turned to Papyrus and clapped him on the shoulder. "Okay buddy, you're off the hook! Keep up the good job! The rest of you scrubs _get to work_. Heh!"

And then Undyne marched away into the cold morning.

"...that lady's one tough customer, huh?" Sans remarked.

"She's a bitch all right," the succubus said.

"takes one to know one, succubutt?"

"Fuckin' blow me, bonehead. Let's get out of this toilet."

"Don't need ta be told twice. Been holdin' it in all mornin'," Doggo grumbled as he shuffled his way towards the exit. Lesser and Greater Dog plodded after him, and then Dogamy, who paused to pass a quick, "Sorry 'bout that, pal," to Papyrus.

Papyrus watched the dogs leave before gathering enough of his wits to speak. "SANS, YOU... OFFERED TO WORK! FOR ME!"

Sans looked away with a rolling shrug. "eh. no big."

Papyrus's mien shifted from overjoyed to conflicted. "YOU DON'T EVEN OFFER TO WASH OUR DISHES!" A wispy smile cracked through. "BUT... YOU STOOD UP FOR ME, IN FRONT OF THE CAPTAIN!"

"don't make a big deal out o- _aff_!" Sans was scooped into a crushing hug. The succubus barely side-stepped in time to avoid it.

"I SUPPOSE IN LIGHT OF THIS, I, THE GREAT AND MAGNANIMOUS PAPYRUS, SHALL HAVE TO FORGIVE YOU, BROTHER! I HOPE YOU FEEL HONORED!"

"need air to breathe, bro," Sans croaked into his shoulder.

"OH, RIGHT." Papyrus put him down. "WELL, THAT'S SETTLED. LET US GO HOME, WHERE I WILL COOK HONORARY PANCAKES! YOU ARE ALLOWED TO HAVE SOME AS WELL, FORTUNE-TELLER."

"Fuckin' great," she said dryly, although she couldn't refuse some breakfast. Jail was rather tiring.

Just outside the shed was another surprise, and he snagged Sans by the collar the minute he set foot out the door.

"Oh, _shit_ ," the succubus hissed as she backed away from Grillby. A weird instinct set her bodily between the fire elemental and Papyrus, as if to shield the latter, though if she stopped to question herself it wouldn't make any sense (if anything, bones could retard flames much more handily than her bare skin and bikini.)

Sans, however, was left to fend for himself. He struggled like a caught trout and then shrugged haplessly, suspended two feet off the ground. "eheh, hey, old buddy, about those damages..."

Grillby, monster of few words that he was, didn't say anything. His sharp dress, void expression, steady flame and steely posture were at that moment— _somehow_ —more terrifying than all of Undyne's thundering. He merely watched Sans sweat in his grip.

Several terse seconds passed, and once the succubus realized Sans was _not_ planning to finish his sentence, she rolled her eyes and fished out the purse tied to her belt. "For fuck's sake...!" She dropped the purse into Grillby's open hand, not even bothering to count the coins. "Here you go. Just drop the poor bastard, already."

Grillby tilted a slight look at the purse, shifted its weight with his thumb, and then nodded. He gently set Sans on his feet and turned to the succubus. _'...Thanks.'_ He strolled away.

"huh," Sans said, tossing her a queer look. "that was all your savings, wasn't it?"

She shrugged it off. "It's just fuckin' money. Can't take it with me, anyway."

"oh. well, thanks anyway." Sans huffed in relief and wiped his brow. "ho boy, that was intense. i ain't seen grillbz that pissed off since he sacked me."

"Sacked?" Her em-reading interpreted that in two very different, awkward directions.

"UGH, DON'T REMIND ME," Papyrus stepped up to explain. "SANS HAD A JOB AT THAT PUB, ONCE."

She raised an eyebrow, genuinely amused. "No shit? Doing what?"

"malk's job, basically. i was supposed to wait tables and translate for grillby." He finished that thought with a string of wistful chuckles.

Papyrus cut into his reverie. "IT WASN'T THAT FUNNY, SANS! YOU DIDN'T TAKE THAT JOB SERIOUSLY AT ALL!"

"well yeah, i only did it so i could slack off and get-"

Papyrus clapped his hands over his ears like someone bracing for a mortar to drop. "OH MY GOD, NO-"

"...fired!"

"UUUUUUGH, I'M GOING HOME!" Papyrus announced, and stomped the twenty feet down the road from the shed to his house.

"Never quit your day job," she said. "So are we gettin' food or what?"

"YES!" Papyrus threw back en route to the mailbox. "BUT BEFORE WE GO INSIDE, I HAVE TO CHECK THE MAIL! I MISSED IT YESTERDAY, AND IT COULD BE VERY IMPORTANT!"

"sure thing, bro."

The succubus leaned towards Sans to whisper, "Does he get actual mail?"

"he doesn't even get fake mail. there was once a mollask in there, though."

"What the hell?"

"yeah, paps was so happy. he finally got his first piece of _snail mail_."

The inflection and crude grin told her it was a joke, and that was all she needed to know. "...Christ," she tested her new swear word. She had another thought, and lowered a sly look. "Let's get real. Are you seriously going to fix and paint those people's fences?"

Sans snickered. "what do you think?"

She gave it only a moment's thought. "...I think you're going to pay Trent to do it."

" _pay_ him? wow, that's an idea."

"Tch, scoundrel."

"I GOT ONE!"

The two blinked at Papyrus, duly surprised. "huh?"

Papyrus bounced back towards them, flapping a short envelope like a lame wing. "A MAIL! IT'S A PERFECT LETTER, RIGHT IN MY BOX, ONLY WORTHY OF BEING READ BY THE GREAT PAPYRUS! WHAT AN AMAZING DAY THIS HAS BEEN ALREADY!" He flipped the envelope over in his hands and read the front. "SEE, IT SAYS..." His eye sockets squeezed in consternation. "'SUCC...U-BUS'? THAT'S NOT HOW MY NAME IS SPELLED!"

"What the fuck?" she belted out, and grabbed the letter. "This is for me?"

"THAT'S NOT HOW YOU SPELL FORTUNE-TELLER, EITHER!"

"succubus is her name, bro."

"WHAT? WHY DIDN'T ANYONE EVER TELL ME?"

"i did...?" Sans offered fecklessly. "we went over that, like, the first night she was here?"

"OH. I SUPPOSE IT DIDN'T SOUND AS GLAMOROUS AS FORTUNE-TELLER, SO I DISCARDED THAT INFORMATION. YOU MUST ADMIT MY VERSION OF HER NAME IS MUCH COOLER!"

"sure is."

As they were quibbling, she ripped open the envelope and unfolded its contents. It contained two short lines of text on a plain sheet of paper. The letter was stripped of any other traits or personality—even the script was machine-typed.

"Uh," she said, remembering her innate problem with letters. "Somebody read this to me?"

Sans took it from her. He blinked once, flipped the paper around to inspect the back, and then said, "huh. no return address or name or signature or anything. just a message."

"Well what is it, dipshit?"

Sans looked up at her. His smile faded a notch. "report in. it's ready."

Papyrus reared back, bemused. "WHAT'S READY? IS IT BREAKFAST? I HAVEN'T EVEN COOKED YET..." He thumbed his chin, considering that, and then burst out, "THIS NOTE CAN READ THE FUTURE, TOO? FORTUNE-TELLER, YOU'RE REALLY GOOD!"


	26. Parting Shots

Breakfast was served 'over easy,' which she didn't know was possible for pancakes. It had a texture that dried her tongue and stuck to her teeth. She gave up after three bites, yet Sans chewed through a whole cake with the resolve of an athlete in a competition.

"You were the type of kid who would eat a whole bottle of glue on a dare, weren't you?" she asked him the moment Papyrus stepped out of the kitchen to change out of his 'battle apron.'

Sans threw back a syrupy grin, undercooked batter sticking to his chops and making him look like an aborted sculpture. "i didn't need to be dared."

"Yeech," she simply said.

After smacking down the last, sticky bite, Sans folded his arms across his middle and dropped his head onto the table. "oomph. i'm done for."

"Dumbass," she instantly diagnosed him. "Could have told you tha'd give you another stomach-ache. You a glutton for punishment, too?"

He looked carefully over his shoulder, taking note of how far his brother was from earshot, and then looked at her and shrugged. She smirked at all the effort put into his non-committal answer. "...y'get used'ta it," he slurred.

"You are a broken little guy, you know that?"

He shook with a short, thick laugh. That was as far as conversation went the rest of the morning. Papyrus's spirits were lifted after his pardon, yet hers were brought down by the proposition of trekking to Hotland, to meet with the shady man for the last time.

She couldn't really explain the feeling of dread. This was the day she'd been working towards since she landed in this place, so why not rejoice? Provided everything went well with her client, she was finally going to leave this planet behind. She didn't belong in the underground—she was a traveler. Moving on was all she wanted ( _right...?_ )

She shook off the unwanted apprehension, thanked Papyrus for the hospitality, and made a quick decision to _not_ tell him goodbye, lest she get... hugged or wept over, or something. She only said she was off to work.

Her next stop was Grillby's. There was already a scene brewing around the broken windows, where Dogamy was nailing plywood in place while the fire elemental swept glass off the sidewalk. She wedged through a small circle of onlookers and walked up to the bear trying to pry gossip out of the barkeep.

"Com'on buddy, it's not like Undyne's gonna talk to the papers, and it's better we get the story straight from the source before..." The bear stopped and recognized her with a wide, sloppy grin. He tipped his fedora. "Well hello there, sweetheart."

"Feh, Marcus." She immediately snubbed him to point a question at Grillby. "Hey, any chance my fucking cloak is in there?"

Grillby gestured into the building, while Marcus turned his flabby lips into a pout. _'...Good luck.'_

"Thanks," she said, and then combed through the bar. Most of the broken bottles had been swept clear, although shattered chairs lying in scraps along the baseboards still testified to the carnage from last night. She picked the material of her cloak out from under a heap of wooden legs and beer-soaked playing cards. One of the sleeves had been shorn away, leaving a frayed tear all the way around the back. _Fucking Ifrit over a bonfire, this is ruined_ , she lamented.

She dumped the cloak and left to gather her 'fortune-telling' supplies. Her sign was still intact where she last worked by the docks, and she allowed one fond chuckle over it before kicking the thing into the river. It had been nice stationery, after all.

She weighed the 'crystal ball' in her hand for a long minute. She couldn't afford to be sentimental over petty objects, she knew—especially now that she didn't have pockets anymore. Even so, she was reluctant to toss it out. She walked for a bit with it, admiring the swirling glitter inside the glass for one last time, and then chanced across another acquaintance.

"Snowfuckle?"

"Hey! It's Snowy! How ru-" The snowman pivoted on his round bottom, and then gasped at the sight of her. "N-Not you again!"

She approached the golem, grinning wickedly. "Guess what? I got you a new hat."

Snowy flailed his twiggy arms in distress. "I don't want a hat, I don't-"

She spiked the globe she was holding into the golem, and his snow-filled cranium absorbed the decoration with a satisfying _crunch_. Snowy spewed a garbled, feeble roar and pawed senselessly at his new crown with nubby fingers. "Graaaaaaah! You batty bitch!"

The succubus continued down the street, hardly breaking stride. "It looks good on you! ...You frosty cunt."

Next she passed the cafe where she and Papyrus once had a nice little chat. The waitress was dressing up the patio for lunch, and thinking about their delicious cinnamon buns reminded her of her inadequate (if well-intentioned) 'honorary breakfast.' Her stomach growled, serving another painful reminder that she couldn't buy any lunch, since she had given all her money to Grillby.

 _Well, perfect,_ she thought. _Now that I'm broke, hungry and lost my cloak, there's no better time to ditch this icicle of a town, is there?_

She looked around the block—at the tiny boars and bunnies skipping around the schoolhouse—at the wrought-iron lampposts covered in frost—at the general store quaintly-trimmed with holly wreaths—at the ice-house at the end of the pier where Rez was chipping away at a glacier—and at the crushed picket fence around the Boarstons' back yard, where Trent was mulling over the damage with a hammer in his paw.

She laughed, spread her wings and took off.

The first thing she glimpsed as she glided into Waterfall was a booth with a snow-covered roof. She couldn't resist, and touched down in front of her favorite sentry with a flourish of dragon-leather and wind magic. The gale in her wake rustled echo flowers for thirty feet in all directions, throwing up twinkling murmurs like spectral applause.

Sans reclined in his chair and contributed a slow clap. "stuck the landing, but i'd only give ya a seven-point-nine."

She brushed her hair over her shoulder and struck a conceited pose. "You Snowdin judges are pretty tough."

"i didn't even call in the waterfall guy. he never gives foreigners a fair score."

"That's tough luck for me, isn't it? I can't get any more foreign."

"heh, yeah." Lingering on that fact dragged his smile down into a grimace. "you're leaving, huh?"

"...Yeah." Of course, he knew what that letter meant the moment he laid eyes on it.

"not to be nosy... y'know, because i don't have one." He rubbed the empty spot between his eye sockets with a snicker. She returned a flat, unimpressed look and he sobered again. "but, uh, can i give ya some advice?"

For half a second she was tempted to turn him down, but then she figured that if anybody in town deserved to be heard before she brushed them all off, it was her mark. "Shoot."

Sans shifted forward in his seat, folding his arms onto the booth. His eye-lights darted across the countertop as he gathered his words. "it's just, the way you act to everybody, it's kinda... uh, cold? even when you're laughing, it's really harsh and cruel. i think the only time i heard a real, genuine laugh out of you was when you and papyrus were trying to kill me, heh." He snorted at the memory, and then levelled a frank look at her. "i'm just sayin', you should try having real emotions sometime. who knows, you might actually like it."

The notion made her balk, and she turned a disdainful look onto a luminescent toadstool. "Tch, yeah, right. It's never done me any favors in the past. Why should I bother now?"

"well, y'know," Sans said, making a dismissive gesture over himself. "i'm dead on the outside. no reason the both of us should be dead on the inside." He punctuated that quip with a dry, hollow laugh. It was supposed to be funny.

"Sans, I'm..." _not equipped to deal with your fucking baggage, and you know it. My rules have kept me safe all this time. Just because you got away with it, doesn't mean I can just let my guard down for anybody and..._ She trailed off, not knowing how to finish.

Sans spoke again, relieving her. "welp, here's my advice anyway: enjoy your own lawn."

She dealt him a quizzical look.

"it's an expression. actually, it comes from one. ever heard someone say, 'the grass is greener on the other side'?"

"Afraid not. The hell you driving at?"

"well, you once asked me how i deal with it all."

She glumly smiled. "Yeah, I remember now. You tried to tell me the secret of life is cheeseburgers."

"hey, i stand by that well-constructed point. i know it to be fact." Sans drummed his finger-bones on the counter, fidgeting until his courage caught up with him. "...but i also know i don't have much of a lawn, and there's always snow on it, anyway. which is good, because hell, could you picture me trying to mow grass? not gonna happen. but anyway, it's about appreciating what you do have, you know? even if it's not much. i like good food, and bad jokes, and making my friends laugh, and hanging out with my brother. those are things i look forward to every day. kinda... the only things i can afford to look forward to. if i start looking too far past that, things just... unravel."

Through the unspoken em-static she picked up two things: he'd started to say 'reset' instead of 'unravel,' and after that a sentence that sounded like, 'time can be really cruel like that.' She quirked an eyebrow in confusion, but didn't interrupt.

"i just hold on to those little things, day by day, and don't... try for anything more than that. kinda easier, that way. it's a pretty lazy philosophy to live by, huh?"

She stared at him, trying to unpack the meaning of it all. She wanted to ask about the shady man. She wanted to ask about secret projects, and magic barriers, and harvested human souls in a royal dungeon—yet above all, she got a terrible urge to ask what it was that first broke him, long before they ever met.

She wondered if he'd know what she was talking about. She had a hunch he would, but she would never be sure until she asked.

"What did he promise you?"

His hesitation told most of the story. "...same thing he promised you."

And here he was. That didn't bode well for her future.

"you're still going to try, though." Reading her like a book, today.

"You wouldn't, given the chance?"

He thought about it. "hard to say. i stopped trying to go back a long time ago. probably wouldn't be all it's cracked up to be, anyway."

And she wondered just how old he was. She didn't ask. "Huh. I appreciate..." She floundered, uncertain how to stomach his flavor of 'advice.' "...all _that_ , but I'm out of here. Tell your brother thanks for everything. He's an okay guy."

The mention of Papyrus brought back a cool, happy smile. "yeah, my brother's pretty rad."

She regarded him with a teasing smirk. "And you are, without a doubt, a cheap, lazy slob."

Sans beamed and scratched his cheek, as if proud of those qualities. She rolled her eyes.  
"But... uh." She licked her lips, cringing over the taste of being honest. It was strange and copper-sweet and made her feel weak and vulnerable, like bleeding. She thought about dusty mattresses and blood on her fingertips.

 _Hell, I'm never coming back, anyway. Can't hurt me to say it, now._

"...You're not a bad guy, either. Actually, as far as marks go, you've been a pretty good one. And I don't actually think you're an ugly chode. You're, uh... really kinda cute, in a weird way. One day I'm sure you'll meet a girl—or guy, I don't judge, whatever—who will make you happy for real. Hell, maybe even somebody who thinks your weak-ass jokes are funny."

She turned away, sparing herself Sans's reaction to that fit of sincerity. The succubus already hated goodbyes, especially when they dragged out, so... "Anyway..." She unfurled her wings.

"hey, uh, i never even got your name, you know?" She made the mistake of looking back, and Sans waved at her with a snide, "or is that another one of your rules?"

It had been so long since she was called by her given name that she had almost forgotten it. She called it to mind just long enough to entertain his request, and then gave a flippant snort. "Rule number four. You're just a mark, I'm just a jane, and nobody has a name. See ya." She braced to fly away.

"heh. see ya, mishu."

Instead of making a graceful leap from the boardwalk into the basin leading out of Waterfall, she crumpled to one knee. She threw a wild look over her shoulder at the monster that had just _called her by name._ "What?!"

"'dumb telepathy,' huh? it's not bad." Sans winked and tapped his temple, his grin turning cocky. "mine's better, though."

"I—you..." Words piled up at the back of her throat like a chained car accident. _You're a goddamn mind-reader_ emerged from the wreckage, but stayed at the tip of her tongue.

"yeah, kinda," he responded to the unspoken, confirming it.

Well, that explained way too much, from the instant they met up to now: he _did_ hear her from the stage, he _was_ talking to Grillby over her head, and he certainly didn't need to _guess_ what she was really up to with the shady man and her pendant. She tried to sound affronted, but was almost too impressed. "That's dirty cheating, you know."

"yeah..." he admitted. "i don't like doing it. it's kind of hard work, and you know how i am." He drove the point with a wide shrug. "you make it really easy, though. your thoughts are super-loud. i really couldn't help overhearing 'em."

"Em-reading kind of does that," she grumbled. It was a side-effect of dumb telepathy that only full telepaths complained about. An instructor had once yelled at her to 'shut up' during a lesson where she hadn't even spoken a word, and that was embarrassing enough to guard her thoughts around full-breeds. She just hadn't bothered around this place, since Grillby seemed to be the only one sensitive to it. Turns out she was wrong about that, too.

She watched Sans stare back at her with the cheeky sort of grin only a skeleton could wear, and berated herself for ever feeling anything for that _stupid, smug asshole_ at all. "You're unbelievable," she said, for what felt like the hundredth time. "And I'm gone. Nice knowing you, bonehead."

"...goodbye, succubutt."

She didn't get interrupted again. She drank in the dewy air, false starlight and rocky vistas of Waterfall as it all rippled beneath her wings. She kept her gaze focused and her thoughts empty, feeling only the clear-headed liberation she always did in flight—it never got old, using her dragon's gift to soar above her problems. The narrow crevasses of the monsters' underground only made her travel more exhilarating, until the tight thoroughfares of the cavern gradually yielded to the scorching expanse of Hotland.

She set down on a street that a handful of blocky-looking monsters ( _What the fuck's with that guy with the pyramid head?)_ were taking towards the urban district. She only had to follow the group to reach the hotel once again.

Nothing had changed about the hotel's back-alley in her absence, except a fresh bag of garbage that a pair of common rats was rummaging through. The bag itself was hot pink, filled with half-eaten chili-dogs and studded with rhinestones in the pattern of a skull and crossbones, which opened a lot of questions she'd never see answered, but it at least gave her something interesting to stare at while she sat on the lid of the dumpster and waited for her call to be answered.

Just as she was beginning to doubt the letter, or fancy herself the victim of a really, really unfunny hoax, the metal door slid open with a sharp _whoosh_ and a flare of orange light, like a dumbwaiter from hell.

"You...!" she spat, about to unload another verbal assault on her shady client, but then she swallowed her tongue.

The monster standing in the door was... no one she had met before. It wasn't actually _standing_ , either—it fluttered off the ground on a pair of silken wings and wore a metal face-plate and canvas padding, looking altogether like a large insect dressed for the battlefield.

It wagged its caterpillar-antennae at her and said in a cricket's voice, "Succubus?"

She climbed off the dumpster and stood at wary attention before it. "Er, yes?"

The monster flew around the back of her head and prodded her towards the door with its spindly feet. "Please, this way. The doctor is waiting."

She ducked into the passage, if only to get clear of the monster's buzzing. "Okay, okay... But I'm going to have some serious words with your boss, you hear me?" Most of those words were going to be demanding her crystal charm returned. She hadn't wanted to lose face in front of her companions in Snowdin, but she'd secretly been anxious over her necklace the entire time. It was the only keepsake from her childhood she considered actually useful, and it was severely trying to use her magic (or even get a restful night's sleep) without it. And that wasn't even mentioning the dark energy it had been soaking under since her client's 'experiment' began... She just wanted it safe in her hands again.

The bug monster joined her inside what turned out to be an elevator. It tapped a button on a console next to the door, which slid shut. They rode down a shaft of creeping cinder-glow, deeper into Hotland than she imagined possible, and finally stopped on a level that opened to...

"What is this, a hospital?" she asked, wondering at the lurid light fixtures, sterile green walls and white floor tiles that paved the corridor ahead. In a back corner was a potted plant that even at a distance looked grossly fake.

"The doctor's laboratory," the bug-monster supplied. "Please, this way..." It fluttered down a branching hallway and stopped before a small, clean exam room. Once the succubus peered inside, her escort hovered away, chirping something about going back to guard duty.

Seated next to a collapsible metal bench and a shelf of medical instruments was a stout yellow drake in a tidy lab coat. At the succubus's appearance, the monster yelped and dropped a paper cup, spilling coffee on the freshly-waxed floor.

"Oh no, I'm sorry...!" The thick spines around the drake's head fanned out like hackles as it lunged for a paper towel off the table, dropped to its knees and mopped at the mess with its tiny hands. "I'm not always this clumsy, y-you just startled me, ahahah..."

The succubus, at a loss with this creature, stood back until it cleaned the coffee spill and composed itself. The drake adjusted its horn-rimmed glasses upon its sloped snout and then greeted her in a timid, stuttering, vaguely-feminine voice.

"H-Hello! I'm D-Doctor Gaster's assistant. Are you ready for your exam?"


	27. Glass Prison

"H-Hello! I'm D-Doctor Gaster's assistant. Are you ready for your exam?"

She balked—for starters, she was unprepared to do anything with this strange drake, rather than the shady man she expected to meet. "What? No." Then her mind processed the word 'exam' and she doubled down on her first reaction. "Hell no."

Reading her suspicions, the drake splayed its (her?) fingers in a frenetic gesture that was meant to placate... somehow. "Oh, i-it's just standard decontamination procedure! There's a lot of electro-magical equipment down here, and it's very sensitive, and u-um, we're just being cautious. I'm only going to take a m-mana reading and draw a sample of..." Her eyes darted towards a tray of steel hand tools. "Um... yeah! It's completely harmless, I promise?"

The succubus followed her look—most of the tools were barbed, and one of them was tipped with a drill. "You touch me with anything in here and I'm going to use it to break every finger in your goddamn hand."

"...um," the drake floundered. Her mug then split with a toothy, nervous grin. "Okay?"

The succubus stamped a foot, making the drake shrink back. "Who the hell is Doctor Gaster? Is that your boss? Tell him I want to see him, _right now_."

The drake winced, uncomfortable in the sort of way that only people stalling for time have ever been, in her experience. "Sorry, th-the doctor's really kinda busy right now, so he sent me to keep—ah, to keep you company, I mean, while you wait. He wants to see you as soon as he's finished, really!"

Her mouth opened with a brewing rejoinder, but then her stomach interrupted. Both jumped at the growling noise, and while the succubus flushed with angry embarrassment, the drake lit up with excitement.

"O-Oh, that sound means you're hungry, right? I've heard it from studying—I mean, that's totally common knowledge, huh? Eheh, heh... hang on, I can help! Wait here, o-okay?"

The drake scurried away, her short lab coat flapping around a fat tail. The succubus had a second to consider making a break for the hallway and finding this 'Doctor Gaster' herself, but then the door to the exam room slid shut with a soft hydraulic _whoosh_ and a mechanical _click_. She gave the door a kick, for good measure—it was solid metal. She was locked in.

"Mother _fuckers_ ," she said to the keypad next to the door. She resigned to sit on the exam table and wait for her captor to return. After a few minutes the door opened, and the drake carefully waddled into the room with a steaming cup in each hand. The elaborate branding on the cups looked even more foreign than the signage she'd seen around the underground.

"H-Here you go," the drake said, passing her one of the cups and a pair of sticks. "I hope you like ramen! It's my favorite. I keep whole boxes of it around. It makes such an easy meal, and so fast, and the instant stuff is even better because you just add water and put in the microwave and—poof! I like the plankton packets best, but I can round up some seaweed or slug tails if you want some extra flavor?"

"No... thanks," she said bemusedly, poking at the meal until she was convinced that it wasn't poison. The hot noodles did smell weirdly appetizing, and she was hungry enough to throw aside some caution. A taste of the stuff placed it at "okay," on a scale of "edible" to "Papyrus's cooking."

The drake slurped from her own cup with a giddy snort, dribbling briny spittle onto her lab coat. "S-See? Did I mention it's my favorite? Oh my god, it's so good."

They ate in sloppy silence from then on, the succubus training one wary eye on the drake and making sure there wouldn't be a move towards anything sharp or pointy. The assistant's gaze skipped erratically between her and the door, a sheen of moisture collecting on her ochre scales. It was funny; she'd never seen a reptile sweat before.

 _She's afraid of me_ , the succubus realized. Considering all the drakes she had ever known possessed enough jaw-strength to punch holes in steel plating, she could have been flattered. It just made this buck-toothed specimen seem pathetic, though.

After licking the last dreg of noodle soup and throwing the cup to the floor, she demanded, "All right, where's your damn boss? I'm tired of fucking waiting."

"T-The doctor?" The drake shifted uneasily. "I'm s-s-sure it'll be any minute..."

When she cracked her knuckles, beads of sweat sprang from the drake's forehead like fleas from a twitchy dog. The succubus would have laughed, if she weren't trying to be intimidating. A soft beep cut off her interrogation, however, and then the door opened and the shady man stepped in.

He looked strange without the trench coat and dark hat, yet she could tell it was the same monster from his slender shape and stilted gait. His hands were clasped behind his back, and one arm swam around to the front and flashed a greeting. "Hello Again, Succubus. Welcome To My Laboratory."

She had an entire diatribe prepared for the next time she saw him, yet his appearance stifled her response. Somehow he was even more unnerving in a simple lab coat and slacks, with his bare head exposed to the plain white light. He had a face like a liquid mask—the pits behind the eye sockets were an impenetrable pitch, and there was something about his features that was wooden and false, even as they flexed in a facsimile of expression.

"Christ, you're uglier than I remember," she said, and the drake gagged on her breath. The succubus's attention flickered to the cloth lanyard around her neck with an attached plastic card. It matched the one the shady man wore.

The shady man fixed a stare at the drake that dragged her to the floor. "Ap-p-p-ologies, Doctor Gaster, I-I-I'll get those results to you, ah-" She passed one more flitting glance to the succubus, squeaked, "Later!" and then crawled out of the room.

"So you're Doctor Gaster," the succubus noted. "You clean up pretty good, I guess. Now you look more like a zombie going for a coffee break than a ghoul trying to steal my purse."

The doctor turned back to her and nodded, maintaining a weird sort of dignity that was above her jabs. "I Suppose You Are Looking For The Reason I Invited You Here."

Her expression turned sour. "If it's a reason other than 'I'm giving you back your charm and you can go home now,' I hope your assistant brought the rubber gloves, because she's going to have to go elbow-deep to dig my foot out of your ass."

Doctor Gaster turned his back with a dismissive twirl of the wrist, and drifted out the door. "Please, This Way. I Will Show You Something Interesting."

She walked after him, grumbling along. At the end of the hall, a guard in heavy plate mail shuffled aside for the doctor, opening the way to another elevator. In passing she peered through the chinks, finding nothing but quietly crackling magic holding each piece of armor aloft. Whether it was a golem or some kind of void monster she couldn't determine, although either explained its floaty, marionette-like motions.

The elevator opened to a wide floor decked in tables and stretchers, with computer consoles nestled along the walls. Near the center of the room were two more monsters in lab coats (a petite ursine with a head like a stuffed toy, and a gaunt green griffin) huddled around a round table. Doctor Gaster approached and they dispersed, revealing the table's centerpiece: a glass cylinder containing a bright yellow anomaly. The ball of light inside was no larger than a fist, floated as if in a fish tank, and shuddered with rhythmic pulses that cast ripples of sunflower gold up and down the glass.

"Behold," Doctor Gaster flatly said.

"What the fuck?" she said, her curiosity over this... _thing_ clashing with the question of how this was immediately relevant to their deal.

"You Do Not Recognize It?" he replied with an undertone of amusement. "Perhaps It Is Not Something You Are Accustomed To Seeing With The Naked Eye, But Observe The Shape."

She squinted at it. Before she called it a 'freaky electric goldfish' she noticed what he meant: its quaint, symmetrical shape, like an upside-down bell or-

Her heart stopped. He took her gawping for acknowledgment. "Yes, It Is A Human Soul, Perfectly Isolated And Preserved Under Its Own Power. The King Should Find This Container More Than Adequate For His Needs, Do You Not Agree?"

"How...?" she uttered, a little shocked at this blasphemous hybrid of science and soul theory. Somewhere far away, she had a spirit magic instructor rolling in his grave.

"-Does It Work?" Doctor Gaster picked up her sentence. "I Will Have You Know That Your Arrival Was Instrumental To This Development. The Material Of Your Pendant Turned Out To Be The Perfect Conduit For Both Magical And Soul Energy. Once We Learned How To Synthesize It, We Could Construct A Container Like This. Absent Of A Soul, The Container Does Nothing, Yet Once A Soul Is Put Inside-" He rested one hand on the smooth black cap topping the cylinder. "-Its Energy Is Channeled Through The Crystal Glass To Generate An Impenetrable Field. The Only Way To Terminate The Current Would Be To Remove Or Extinguish The Soul. Ingenious, Is It Not? It Is Not Dissimilar To The Soul Energy Maintaining The Barrier, Which Makes It Very Fitting, I Think."

"Uh... neat," was her reaction to the scientific jargon. Then the key item of interest struck her, and she whirled on him. "My pendant! Where is it?"

Doctor Gaster hummed a reticent note that didn't translate. "It Is Still In Our Custody. There Is More Testing To Be Done Before We Can Release It To You."

" _Bullshit_ ," she snapped, her voice cracking across the room hard enough to make the attending scientists flinch away. "I came down here to get it back and get out of this dump! You're telling me you're not even finished with your part of the deal? I took this job, did everything you said, and busted my ass in the cold and wet, all for you to show me a fucking canary in a magic cage? Why should I give two shits what your king wants? The fuck have you been doing all this time, besides stringing me along, stealing my shit and chapping my a-"

" **Do Not Test Me** ," Gaster boomed, his hands flexing into a gesture that blurred before the eyes and dipped his words in caustic ink. She slid back onto one foot, alarmed at the shift in tone that was so dreadfully familiar it made her freshly-healed wing twitch.

Then she blinked, and Gaster stood straight and still again, ever-poised. The room was conspicuously absent of other scientists. "You Will Receive The Compensation That Was Arranged. The Apparatus We Constructed Needs A Little More Time To Calibrate. Once It Is Ready, You Will Be Notified, And In The Meantime You Are Invited To Stay In This Lab."

Nothing in his tone brooked further argument, so she merely scowled. "Fine. I'll wait."

Doctor Gaster took a slinking exit out the far door. "Good. You Will Be Shown To Quarters."

A lab technician showed her an exam room similar to the first one she visited, only furnished with a cot and chamber pot. "How cozy," she spat at the tech, who shrugged and ambled away. Then she sat on the cot and sulked for the rest of the day.

The little drake came back to see her in the morning—or she supposed it was morning, since there was about as much natural light in the lab as a dungeon. Daily cycles appeared to be observed by the overhead lights switching off and on for some hours.

Still skittish and sketchy, the drake played at befriending her by offering another cup of hot ramen. The succubus accepted the food but didn't fall for much else.

"Nice weather today, isn't it? I mean, um, i-it's always the same, since we condition the atmosphere in these sub-levels with a central air system regulated by aluminum ducts and electric fans and a thermostat, but, uh... Hey, any chance you'd be up for a little exam, just to pass the time? We're already in an exam room, so it makes sense, huh? Eheh, heh..."

The succubus politely kicked the footstool out from under the drake, hoisted her by the tail, dragged her out of the room and dumped her into a garbage pail in the hall. She then returned to her cup of ramen and finished it in peace.

The next day, the drake sat in the room with her for an extra hour after breakfast, playing a digital game on a pocket-sized electronic box. Her company lured the succubus more into a state of annoyance than security, and when the drake finally proposed, "H-Hey, you're part dragon, right? I just thought of a new game! Let's test each other's temperature, to see how they're different! That should be c-cool, right? Eheheh, I mean, cold! As in cold-blooded? Like... reptiles? Or dragons? ...No? O-Okay, I'll just get this thermometer, and-"

The drake was ejected from the exam room with a thermometer in a less polite place.

The succubus, restless and unsatisfied with that brief stint of violence, decided to walk the halls to cool her temper. The guards gave her free roam of some empty rooms, the main lab floor and the employee cafeteria, although the doors with keypads refused to budge, and she was... discouraged from using certain elevators. The door locks appeared to function on a level of technology higher than anything she saw in Snowdin or the Hotland resort. It was even comparable to the para-magic tech she'd find on her home world, which wasn't a helpful observation beyond telling her she would need a special key or code to get through. Apart from the drake, the lab staff and security would not speak to her or look her in the eyes, so either they were afraid of her (as they should be—she was pissed off at the whole operation) or they were ordered not to.

She was a prisoner in all but name. It was infuriating.

Once her feet grew sore from pacing, she retired to her 'quarters.' She found the drake there, armed with two more cups of noodles.

"You eat this drek all hours, don't you?" the succubus had to ask, yet couldn't refuse the meal. The taste of this 'ramen' stuff was really growing on her, irritatingly enough.

"Eheheh, yeah..." the drake diffidently admitted. "It's just kind of... um. Not a lot of human stuff falls down here, you know? Sometimes the junk that washes up at the dump is all rotten and ruined, but the noodles always come up perfect. I-It's the preservatives, I guess. I tried to synthesize the ingredients, but the monster equivalent just isn't the same, no matter what kind of magic is used. It's just neat, to taste a little bit of what it's like on the surface." A sullen look drooped into her cup. "Everything on the surface always seems so much... better."

"Hnnn," the succubus mumbled, further sympathy stifled by a mouthful of noodles. "Why the fuck..." She swallowed, and needled the drake with lukewarm suspicion. "Are you being nice to me, too? I just whooped your ass earlier..." She already knew the half of it—her boss likely charged her with keeping an eye on the succubus, and probably running a lot of uncomfortable tests, to boot. She was just interested in what this drake would say.

Doctor Gaster's assistant blinked, abashed. "Oh, uh... um. I just figured... maybe ah, you, um..." She drummed her stubby claws on her cup. "...were lonely?"

She was an em-reader, she _read_ things, she saw words fumble and thoughts slip— _No, you're lonely. You're pathetic. And acting like you want to be my friend makes ME feel pathetic._

"Ah, fuck off back to your boss," she growled, the words feeling thick on her tongue, like syrup. She was tired—tired of dealing with these monsters all day, probably.

"Oh, okay..." The assistant meekly said, and finally left her in peace. As she flopped onto the cot and fell asleep, she wondered how that drake exactly knew she was half-dragon, anyway.

When she woke up the next morning, her arm stung. The succubus scrubbed an itchy welt on her skin and let the implications smack her in the face.

"That—fucking— _whorebasket_!" she ground out, hitting the cold floor tiles in a fury and storming out the open door.

The hall was empty, the guards not yet making a round on her floor. She accosted the elevator with her foot, but like the other locked doors it didn't give, and she was left with a sore heel instead. It still felt good to curse at the inanimate block, even for a minute. A set of service stairs took her to an outdoor level that was cordoned off (impressively) with lasers. Beyond was a sharp cliff-drop onto the molten floor of Hotland.

She might have had better luck finding the drake again by just waiting in her room, but her sense of vengeance wasn't that patient. _That unbelievable, sneaky sack of bitch shit on fire_ , she fumed at a wall of electric neon bars. _She DRUGGED me, just to run her stupid tests while I was passed out. I'm going to find her, punch those stupid glasses off her face, gouge her eyes out and replace them with goddamn ramen cups._

When she rounded the next corner, she bumped into a guard stepping out of an office—it was one of those magicians, with the curly shoes and tall, pointed hats. "Oh! Hey..." he said with dull caution, and swiped his key card to draw the door closed.

"Hey," she said, rooted to the spot by indecision. Should she try to interrogate this guy, or even explain why she's over here?

"You lookin' for the doc?" the guard spoke again, to her surprise and relief. This was the first security monster to speak to her in two days.

"Uh, yeah, kinda. You seen that shitty little assistant of his?" She held her palm level with her hips. "About this high, goofy glasses, stutters like a bitch-"

"Ah, Doctor Alphys," the guard sighed. "Couldn't tell ya. Her and the doc usually have a meeting around this time, first thing on shift. I wouldn't be surprised if they're meeting extra early for the big test. I could try to page one of 'em, if you want. Not an emergency or somethin', is it?"

 _It will be, after I'm done with her._ "Uh, no. That's okay, don't worry about it. Thanks anyway." She stared at him a moment. Unlike the other guards, his demeanor was remarkably affable. What else could she get him to tell her? "What big test?"

"Ah, right..." The guard gently swished the cup of coffee in his (eerily disembodied) hand, considering his words. "I figured the doc filled you in already, or something. Guess not. Not my place to do it, though. You should go talk to 'im, if you really want to know."

 _Damnit_. "Tch, I haven't talked to that lanky motherfucker in days."

The guard chuckled. "Most of us don't talk to him at all. How do you understand him, anyway?"

She turned to him with a perplexed tick. "What?"

"Doctor Gaster? How can you tell what he's saying? The only person around who knows how to talk to the guy is his assistant. You speak that weird nonsense, too?"

"No, I..." _didn't know he was speaking a separate language, but it explains a hell of a lot._ "Kinda. I can read minds," she gave an over-simplified explanation. If she really could read minds—even half as well as Sans apparently could—she wouldn't have been stupid enough to get trapped down here. Remembering Sans only put a bitter taste in her mouth, and certainly didn't fix the fact that she was stuck with a gang of cheating, shifty, so-called 'scientists.'

"No kiddin'?" the guard said. When she didn't confirm whether or not she was 'kidding' and resumed staring through the laser-fence, wishing the whole lab and certain parts of Snowdin could combust with the power of her thoughts, the guard took a sip of coffee and drawled, "So... they say you're a succubus?"

Now _that_ was the type of question only two kinds of people asked: ignorant gawkers or interested parties. The succubus grinned—she had a plan.

"That's what they say," she said, sidling up to the wall and reclining on one elbow over the guard's head. "I could show you how I work, if you like."

The guard leaned away just an inch, still close enough to drink the scent of her long hair over the vapors of his coffee. "Eheh, heh, wow, lady. Normally I'm supposed to say no, but I am on break..."

Her other hand gently guided his back to the wall, and his mulling turned into a strangled hiccup. "H-H-Hey there, I-"

She thought about everything she'd learned of these monsters—all the 'fortune telling,' the snow golem's brand, her time with Marcus, and Trent, and S-

She stopped, thought less, breathed more, and let her shade do the talking. The magician-monster gave a _divine_ giggle and melted into a pile of loose robes and gloves, the paper cup bouncing off the ground and spilling coffee on her toes.

The succubus was alarmed at how quickly her spirit magic overwhelmed him, and she vaguely wondered if she'd killed the guy. She crouched down to poke him, and the pointy hat at her feet burbled drunkenly. She shrugged. _He'll be fine. ...Probably._

She rooted through the magical cloth and lifted a cloth lanyard from the mess. The attached card winked at her under Hotland's warm red glow, lighting a wicked smile on her face. She examined the printed words and photograph of the magician on the card, and wondered whether it was magically enchanted to the holder's aura, like high-security keys on her home world would be. If it was, it wouldn't react if someone not bound to the card tried to use it (or worse, it would deliver a nasty shock.)

She tested the card on the keypad next to the magician's office, just as she saw the guard do moments ago. The door slid open without fanfare—that answered that. She hissed in glee and entered the office, beholding a small desk covered in small, TV-like monitors. Each screen showed monochromatic images that appeared to be a live feed of the entire lab.

 _This place is monitored by cameras?_ She hadn't looked at the ceiling closely enough to spot these, apparently. The screens flickered between dozens of feeds, and she scanned them closely to find— _What the fuck, is that Grillby's?_

It was tucked into a corner—she nearly missed it. She stared hard at that sole monitor displaying the bar. It was black-and-white and slightly fogged, yet the brassy sign and boxy storefront screamed familiarity. Then the feed cut to a row of houses covered in snow. Then to a boardwalk that looked like it belonged in Waterfall. She even recognized the front door of the shop the old tortoise owned.

 _Is EVERYWHERE monitored by fucking cameras?_ Something curled in the pit of her stomach—something really uncomfortable. She squashed the crude feeling and focused on the other screens, looking expressly for-

 _There those bitches are._

Doctor Gaster and his assistant (Alphys, apparently) were talking face-to-face in a small room. She didn't recognize the room, but a symbol burned onto the feed was probably a label for the camera. Laminated in plain sight on the desk was a map with matching symbols, and all she had to do was find a symbol for a place she did recognize ( _There's the damn cafeteria_ ) and draw a line from A to B.

"I fucking got you cock-gobblers," she huffed, leapt over the shivering mound of magician at the door and raced up the service stairs. Her human skin prickled with goosebumps as she stepped back into conditioned air. She stuffed her stolen key-card into her bikini just before one of the flying-bug guards buzzed by, and carried on towards the cafeteria unmolested.

The breakfast crowd was even lighter than she anticipated, considering she'd seen roughly sixty heads at the tables for lunch and dinner previously. Only three monsters were parked around their boxes of juice and mushroom muffins, which made it almost too easy to approach a locked door with a big sign (she guessed it read 'KEEP OUT' or 'EMPLOYEES ONLY' or a variant of 'FUCK OFF,' her preferred verbiage.)

Whatever it read, it led into a hallway that took her straight to the room she found on the map. She considered bursting in and making her discontent _physically_ known to these assholes, yet a flash of instinct gave her the notion to stop and wait.

And listen. When she stood close enough to the closed door, the muted voices on the other side could be picked up perfectly by her em-reading. Her blood started to boil at the sound of Alphy's high-strung voice.

"I-I'll tell the interns to watch from the booth, then. They're going to want to be on the floor, but you're right, about safety and all. As long as they d-don't restrict access to the control panel, it should be all right, huh?"

"Of Course. Safety For All Monsters Comes First," came Doctor Gaster's smooth reply.

"O-Of course," Alphys agreed. "That, uh, r-reminds me... Did you, um, maybe think about our talk last night?"

There was a pause, and the sound of rustling paper. "...I Did. I Have Mixed Feelings About It. I Made Her A Deal. It Would Be Dishonorable To Retract it."

She grit her teeth. If 'her' and 'deal' were pertaining to their business-

"But—But you made a promise to the king as well, right? Doesn't your fealty to him over-r-ride your promise to s-some outlander?"

"King Asgore Needs Not... Necessarily Be Aware Of The Full Extent Of Our Dealings."

"Wha..." She could practically hear the drake's jaw drop. "What do you mean by that?"

"...Nothing. Never Mind My Musing. Still, You Cannot Deny She Could Be Key To Unlocking The Distortion's Full Potential."

"Just as much as her soul could be key to breaking the barrier! B-Besides, it's really dangerous to have someone with such a high LV around here, isn't it?"

She wondered what _LV_ meant. Acronyms were always the worst on her em-reading.

"You were just talking about everyone's safety," Alphys persisted. "I-I know it makes you uncomfortable, but you said yourself we don't even _need_ her to-

"Enough," Doctor Gaster cut her off. "We Will Continue to Monitor The Subject. In Time, She May Assist Us. If She Does Not Comply... We Will Discuss Alternate Measures."

Her wings bumping the opposite wall jarred her back to the present. She wasn't even aware she'd been backing away from the door—in outrage, partly, but even more out of...

She thought about that room full of monitors, watching everything-

 _'you should be careful what you say.'_

Sans hadn't been threatening her; he had been warning her. ... _Fuck. That's how they were keeping tabs on me. They weren't just going to let me walk away, even if I could, were they?_

A _click_ sounded behind the door, igniting a spark of panic. She needed to get out of here, she needed to get out of all of this, she needed to leave, she needed to LEAVE-

She sprinted around the corner and ducked behind a rusty water fountain, its tin box giving a tell-tale shudder as she brushed against it. Luckily for her (and her heart), Doctor Gaster didn't notice as he left the room and paced the other way, Alphys at his heels. Once she heard the door at the end of the hall _swish_ open and closed, she released her breath.

She was alone, and safe for now. And a fucking coward. She slumped against the fountain, kicked the wall and cursed.

"Mother FUCKERS!" She should have just waltzed into the room and killed them both. She should just kill everyone in her path and leave. She'd find some other way—ANY other way—to leave the underground, and simply go ahead on her own. But, wait—she needed her charm back, first. Perhaps she could capture the doctor, or hold his slimy little assistant hostage, and force them to-

 _'do you always have to make threats and demands?'_

Her head wilted into her hands. She carefully breathed out.

 _I didn't want to hurt these people. I just wanted to leave. We made a deal. I was being FUCKING civil. That bitch wants to turn me over to their king, after everything I did for them? How DARE those bastards. Fuck them. Fuck them all._

She breathed until her blood cooled and she stopped seeing rust. Her gaze slowly focused on a metal grate. A faintly cold draft was seeping through the thin slats.

 _'...we condition the atmosphere in these sub-levels with a central air system regulated by aluminum ducts and electric fans and a thermostat...'_

"You don't say," she murmured, an idea brewing that arched her back and drew her towards the grate. The four screws holding it in place gave way after she broke two of her claws in them. Beyond was a narrow duct just wide enough for her to bodily squeeze through, so that she did.

She couldn't say it was easy going, or quick. The walls clapped like thunder at every sharp movement and were icy to the touch, but if she could bear a cold bench in Snowdin for a day, she could handle some chilly ventilation shafts. She didn't have a direction in mind, specifically—she just wanted to crawl behind the walls until she chanced over the room holding her charm, or an exit. She could fly if she had to, if only a good opening appeared.

By the time her elbows and knees started chafing against the aluminum, she fretted that she was lost. There was a fork in the ducts to her right that lead into unpromising darkness. She stared through the dust flurries for a minute, snorted, "Fuck it," and took a chance.

The moment she was enveloped in black and unable to see her own hands, the sound of metal tearing eclipsed the curse sliding out of her mouth.

"Fffffffffffffffff- _ahhhhhh_!"

She fell.


	28. Catacombs

Insulating fabric and shredded tin rained like confetti as the duct ripped under her weight, and she plunged ever-deeper into the dark. There was that tipsy, weightless sensation that usually accompanied a dive, and she had to tuck in the impulse to spread her wings and catch the air to slow her descent. If she reached out blindly during a fall like this and clipped one of her wings, she was going to have a much tougher time finding a doctor to mend it.

Instead, she curled into a ball and dropped. The plummet lasted two seconds longer than she liked, and just as a panicked thought told her to lift her head and unfurl her wings anyway, her whole body crashed into a pile of hollow stones. There was a clatter like an entire pottery shop being dumped over her head, and dozens of sharp shards rent what was left of her clothes and sliced her skin.

She sat stunned, partially buried in the tough, brittle mineral that broke her fall. The spots swimming before her eyes weren't helping her find her bearings, and all she could observe was that this place was very dark and very large. Bits of debris skittered from the impact and sent tinkling notes echoing around for more than a second, suggesting someplace immense.

It was also very, very quiet. The rustling and cursing she made as she pulled herself out of the rocks was the only sound to reverberate through the enclosure.

"Fucking... fucking... fuck," she coughed, breathing out dust. She blinked, squeezing out the tears running from her eyes and letting her dragon's vision acclimate to the scene. She checked herself for injuries (just scratches and bruises, fortunately, although her tail wasn't going to be happy tomorrow) and then searched her surroundings for... hell, anything.

There was some soft grey light filtering in from above, but it was faint and far away. She wondered just how deeply she was underground, now. She picked up one of the rocks and turned it over, feeling out its weird, lumpy shape, smooth faces and jagged corners. _This isn't right_ , she realized, and then examined another stone. And another. _These aren't rocks..._

Then she picked up a skull, and instantly dropped it. "Son of a bitch!" The skull rolled down the pile and nestled into a valley made up of more bones. She looked to the next hill and picked out the tell-tale details of femurs and hips and ribs, and more skulls. The bones were everywhere—great heaping mounds of them, covering every inch of floor space.

"What the shit is this?"

"eeeeeeeeeEEEEeeeeeHHEEHEEheheheheEEEEEEEEheheheheEEEE!"

Raucous, warbling laughter exploded around the chamber, dropping her to her claws and knees and raising every hackle she had. The racket poured from every corner, and then—impossibly—coalesced in front of her, taking three wispy, spectral forms.

"The hell are you guys?" she asked, tail thrashing anxiously behind her.

The one on the left gave an opaque shimmer and assumed a shape that looked like a terrible costume, some lighter-than-air drapery with black holes cut into a crude face.

Then it whispered, "We're ghosts."

She stilled, and stared. "...Of course you fuckin' are."

The one in the middle cackled and twirled like a pinwheel, wisps of orange mist trailing from its colorless body. "Ghosts, ghosts, ghooooostsssss!"

She stood upright, still shaky with this encounter but willing to negotiate. After all, this wasn't even the strangest thing she'd met in the past few weeks. "So if you guys are supposed to be ghosts, what does that make this place? A goddamn graveyard?"

The one on the right bobbed on an invisible draft and hissed through shimmering red fangs, "It'ssssss a crypt."

The succubus threw a glance around the cavern. She couldn't tell whether there was more dust in the air or bones on the ground. "These are human remains," she realized.

"Annnncient bonesssss," the red-ish one said. "Fallllen humanssss long ago, before baaaaarrier."

 _You monsters just went and built your civilization on top of a giant goddamn burial mound? That's fucking macabre._ She nearly asked if they had first-hand knowledge of that—by the looks of them, they _could_ be hundreds of years old, but it was hard to say with spectres. The bones at her feet, however, aged much more clearly.

"Some of these look a little more fresh than others," she remarked.

"Sssssome fall laaaater. Alllll fallllll down here, in the end, heh, heh, heh..."

The orange-ish one chimed in, "Eeehee! We can show you!"

"Show me what?" she asked, even as the three screamed away in unison, leaving respective trails of green, orange and red foxfire across the hills of bones. "Hey! Fuckin'—wait up!" she shouted, scrambling to catch them and not getting a lot of traction on the loose terrain.

The three gathered at the base of another hill, and once she caught up to them the first thing to stop her was the stench. "Holy sweaty minotaur balls," she retched, as the orange ghost illuminated the ripening corpse of a human male.

"Eehehehehehe!"

"Yesssssssss, human death! Death for all humansssss, here."

"This one met his fate too soon and not long ago," the green one said quietly.

He did seem pretty young, perhaps barely a teenager. He was wearing a studded vest and boots, and an oddly-shaped hat over the rotting flesh of his nose. Whether he was killed on the spot or dumped here was tough to discern in this light, yet even without flies and varmints tearing apart his carcass, the damage couldn't have been done more than a week ago.

She thought about a bright yellow soul fluttering in a cage upstairs. "Tch. Assholes."

"Willll youuuuu joiiiin ussssss?" the rubicund ghost beckoned.

"I'll pass," she said curtly. "One of you sons of a bedsheet want to tell me how to get out of here and back to the lab? I've got some fucking business to take care of."

The three made humming sounds like a gaggle of wind instruments. At length, the orange one spun around and barked, "We will! If you answer our riddles three, hehe!"

"Oh come on!" she shrilly complained. "Are you ghosts or sphinxes? I don't have fucking time for this."

"You can allllwaaaaaays find the way on your own," the red one intoned.

She looked around the expansive darkness, mulling over the hours it might take to narrow down a safe, unobstructed route.

"There are spiders," the green one's tiny voice added.

"Ugh, fuck." She crossed her arms and pouted. "Okay. Riddle me up, you carnie drop-outs."

The ghosts quivered in glee. "I'llllll go firrrrrrrrrst," the red one said. It glided into her face and spit out, "What do ghostsss ssserve for desssssssert?"

"A ghost joke?" she criticized. "Fucking seriously?"

The ghost grinned broadly in response, only looking more uncanny for every tooth bared. _God, it's a stupid food joke, too. Probably a pun, just like..._

She blinked. "...I scream."

Red ghost reared back with a chortle while the orange one wailed in delight. "Ehehehehehe yesss! Me now, me now!" It leaned forward and offered, "What do you get when you cross a cat with a lemon?"

She didn't know if this was part of the test or more of the joke, but she recognzied _that_ one, too. "...A sour-puss."

"Weeeeeeeeeehehehehehehe!" the orange one celebrated, spinning like a firework over the hill and out of view.

Then the green one timidly approached. "What kind of bone will a dog never eat?"

She stared clean through it. This wasn't funny.

"Hmmm?" the red one purred, prodding her thoughts back on track.

"Ah, it's..." She shook her head and grit her teeth. It was too stupid to say. "...a trombone."

"Mwehehehehehahahawee!" The red and orange ones filled the cavern with an unnerving cacophony. "Yay," the green one chirped, and floated up and away like a balloon. "You should go this way," its small voice carried back to her.

"Thanks," she grumbled, and steadied her wings for a tall leap. The stale air was heavy enough for some good lift, and she barely struggled on her way to the top of the room. The green ghost was gracious enough to guide her to an open metal shaft, and then be her lantern all the way back to the laboratory's central air system.

"I'll go now. Good luck," it whispered behind her ear, yet when the succubus whirled around to reply with _thanks_ , it had vanished.

"...Fucking creepy," she uttered through her teeth. She could now claim to have discourse with real ghosts, she supposed, yet the only thing that haunted her were those riddles. She had heard a comedian tell all these jokes recently, which was fortunate, since she never would have guessed those asinine answers on her own. She tried to dismiss it all as a coincidence. It clung to her, anyway, like the scent of old bones and ketchup.

 _I should have asked how old he was._ It still didn't matter.

The succubus pressed on. The vents she occupied now were dusted with cobwebs, which said that nobody had swept through in a while, as well as marked new territory for her. She crawled up to the first detachable grate should could find and peered into the space beyond.

 _Weird... it's dark. And quiet._ She couldn't sense another soul around, so she unscrewed the grate, placed it aside and gingerly dropped into an empty hall. Once her eyes adjusted to the gloom, it wasn't as dark as she initially thought. The daytime fluorescents were off, but soft night-lights along the baseboards lit the dingy white tiles.

It looked like the rest of the lab... superficially, at least. It could simply be that it was a less-used part of the facility, yet the lack of staff and the layer of dust on the fake ficus gave her a darker suspicion, one that screamed _I shouldn't be here_ at every step.

The elevator only bolstered her feeling of dread, since its lock didn't respond to her stolen card key with anything but a blinking red light. She would have to find another way to leave this level... but she didn't want to try her luck with the vents again, just yet. She walked the floor, exploring her options.

Well-worn footsteps gleamed off the floor under the base-lights, mirage-like. She followed the trail to a room full of whirring machinery, the walls decked in fans, vents and panels with buttons and switches. _This must control the central air,_ she gleaned. There was an open tool box in the corner, and she considered picking up a spanner and throwing it into the works, just to screw up everyone's cozy 'controlled air.' It would draw a little too much attention, though, so instead she slunk away.

Another room was stocked full of wire-frame beds. The space wasn't as large as the cafeteria upstairs, but it rivaled it, and the look and placement of the beds suggested that they were lived in rather than worked upon, unlike the exam rooms and stretchers in the lab proper.

One of the blankets was rumpled, so she picked it up, took a hard sniff and uncovered a scent. It was hard to scry the gender, or the person was too young to leave that kind of musk, but it was definitely _homo sapiens_ —that was an odor one couldn't mistake. _Is this where captured humans are kept?_ Suddenly the vacancy of this floor was even more noticeable.

She entered another passageway, this one lined with small offices and a storage room full of filing cabinets. Some were empty (she learned this by punching one and watching it wobble), some were locked, and the ones that weren't contained reams of paper. The only kinds of documents she knew to have that many pages and that small text were either medical reports or legal contracts. Both were too boring to read, even if she could.

The door across the hall was locked—not electronically or magically, but by core, copper and wood. She smirked. It was odd, after being barred by all the higher tech, to come face-to-face with something so antiquated in their security system. It was probably a janitor's closet or something equally banal, but she relished a chance to pick a lock the old-fashioned way.

She had to go back to the tool box in the air control room to find a suitable pick, since she wasn't about to break another claw on a stupid door today. After five minutes and a lot of grunting under her breath, she realized two things: a screwdriver wasn't going to cut it, and she didn't care about old-fashioned lock-picking anymore. She kicked the door off its hinges.

The room's contents felt just as out-of-place as the lock. There was a folding chair in the middle of the floor, planted in front of a wooden hutch with a television set on top. A door in the hutch revealed a cabinet full of black cassette tapes and a tape-playing device just like the one she'd seen in Papyrus's house. Two bookshelves against the walls housed a handful of books and rows and rows more of black tapes. The room contained nothing else.

A dull indicator light below the switch on the TV showed it had power, and a glance at the wiring proved that it was connected to the playback device. Her curiosity (and a cursory understanding of VCRs from those nights with the skeletons) compelled her to play a tape.

She thought it was broken, at first. The screen only showed black. Voices roughly poured out of the TV's old speakers, yet she still couldn't em-read a recording, so it was all babbled garbage to her. She ejected the tape, tossed it aside and tried another, just to be sure.

This one played video, which seemed like progress, except there was no audio now. The movie was black and white and flickering, not exactly pristine footage, and when the snow cleared, all she had to look at was an overhead shot of an office, or maybe storehouse. The floor tiles and austere furnishings looked like any given room in the lab. _More goddamn security footage. So they record it all, too, and store it down here?_

She ejected the tape and reached for something different. Hidden away in a corner of the hutch were half a dozen tapes in special boxes. Their labels were brightly-colored and bore illustrations of bright scenery and cartoon animals. She took one and squinted at the title, trying to puzzle it out. _Keep staring at it, dumbass, like it's going to start talking to you any minute or you'll magically learn to read,_ she chided herself, and then put the tape in the VCR.

The contents of the tape matched its cover pretty well. It was full of swelling music and perky, animated creatures acting out a play. _Papyrus would eat this shit up,_ she thought.

She snorted, stopped the tape and put it away. _I'm wasting my time here._

The succubus got up off the floor and turned to leave. Something on one of the bookshelves caught her eye. It was another tape, and on the spine was a printed label and some letters etched by hand (numbers, she was almost certain.) There was an entire row of tapes similarly-marked, yet the four that snagged her attention each had a symbol penned in blue.

It was a glyph, and one she'd seen recently—before and behind her eyes, drawn in ink and snow and copper-blue bones. "Papyrus...?" she mouthed, taking his golem brand off the shelf and looking the tape over. It was just an ordinary cassette, for all appearances.

She couldn't leave, now. She played the first tape.

Once the tracking calmed down, the video showed more security footage. The camera was fixed to a corner of the ceiling in a room she didn't recognize, full of equipment she couldn't name. She was going to assume it all belonged to Doctor Gaster, since that was the first person to walk into frame.

He had someone with him, a short figure walking at the doctor's heels. She was about to guess it was his assistant, but the lack of color on the tape played tricks on her eyes. She peered past the figure's skinny limbs, t-shirt, shorts and hat, and noticed the dark hair and pale skin. She didn't need to look further to discern that it was not a monster.

It looked like an ordinary human child. Of course, human children in the underground didn't have ordinary fates, especially if the shady man was involved. She hit the 'speed up' ( _fast-forward?)_ button to skim through the footage. What she got was a rough time-lapse of a machine being built—or being repaired? The small boy and shady man took turns moving sundry pieces around a structure that was taller than both of them. She still couldn't discern the contraption's purpose, except that it looked complicated. The doctor had schematics stacked onto a desk that he would periodically check or mark over with a sharp pen. The boy consistently had a tool in hand (at one point she saw the little guy with a welding torch, which kind of impressed her.)

The tape reached its end, so she took it out and put in the second one. It was more of the same, showing the same room and the same boy, working with Doctor Gaster on the same machine. Bit-by-bit a sort of... pod-shaped... thing was constructed. She fast-forward to the end of the second tape, and put in the third.

The third tape surprised her with a change in scenery, or rather the camera angle. The footage was level with the ground and featured the machine prominently in the background. Doctor Gaster walked into frame, waved at the camera and began to speak. The sudden noise penetrating the small, dark room made her jump, and stripped of em-reading, the sound of his voice gave her shivers, to boot. It had a ringing, hollow pitch to it, like wind chimes at the bottom of a pipe organ, and was accompanied by those exaggerated hand motions. She didn't have a clue what he was saying, but she was transfixed—it just _looked_ important.

There was a cry—maybe a cheer, actually—from off-camera, and Doctor Gaster brusquely turned to rebuke someone behind him. She fast-forward through more of the doctor's bizarre speech. Then the doctor walked towards the back, crouched down and conferred with another small person, whom he then took by the hand and guided towards the camera.

It was the best look she got of the child. He was wearing a striped shirt, a sports cap, overalls streaked with grease and a crooked, cocky smile. She guessed he was twelve years old. He waved his tiny hand at the camera and also spoke—not at such length or passion as the doctor did, but with a certain buzz of excitement.

Doctor Gaster gave some final words to the camera, and then some instructions to the boy. She watched the boy open a hatch on the machine and crawl inside. Doctor Gaster manned a panel full of instruments off to the side. Everything was connected by bundles of thick cables, like black snakes all over the floor. The door on the machine closed, a strange hum filled the microphone, light began to spill out of every crack in the machine, and then-

"Hey, what the fuck?" The recording had cut to static. She re-wound it, and then fast-forward again to make sure she didn't miss something. No... it just stopped there. She picked up the last tape. This one was extra special, because the label had been scratched over with a thick, ugly X. She started it from the beginning, and...

"Seriously, what the fuck?!" It was all static. She let it play for a minute, waiting for the tracking to clear up. It didn't, so she fast-forward, watching a field of blank snow for minutes. "What happened to the kid? What happened with the damn machine?" She was about to give the VCR a hard stop with her knuckles, but then the picture twitched, and something appeared, right at the last inches of tape.

Her fist froze in mid-air, and she watched.

It was security footage again. There was some sound with it, but the quality was patchy. The room was an unrecognizable mess, broken parts and scraps of metal everywhere. For a second she couldn't tell if this took place before or after the machine was built, yet the smoke and sparks issuing from ruptured cables gave her a rough idea. There was a glimpse of Doctor Gaster, his back to the camera, drawing a sign in the air with one finger before turning and striding out of view. In the middle of the floor was a collection of bones laid out on a tarp like a grotesque picnic, and the kid was kneeling over them.

Or... it resembled the kid. Even though he was wearing the same clothes and cap, he seemed... off. Misshapen, somehow. He was holding something small and bright in his hand, but otherwise he looked... _Alone._

Then he doubled over and started to cry.

It wasn't the "tears and sobbing" kind of cry, the kind kids do, the sort one gets from a scraped knee or a pet dog dying. It could have been that, too, but the camera resolution would never show it, even if the kid weren't bent towards the ground. No, it was a _cry_ —loud, long, savage. It filled the room, grated on the small TV's speakers, warbled and warped as it went on, changed pitch, was all-consuming and tiny at the same time. It was too much to come from one little off-center blurb on the screen, but it had to have been the kid and only the kid. It wasn't a word, or a scream—there was no terror, and there was nothing else happening in the frame.

It was the kind of cry only produced by something cold and broken. She'd never heard anything like it, and would likely never again.

It felt like it went on for ages. She wanted to stop it. She couldn't even move to press the button. At long last it ended, smothered by a quiet sob. The kid looked up, directly at the security camera, and she only saw a bleached face with two pitch, hollow eyes before a piece of rubble rocketed off the ground and into the lens, cutting the footage.

She sat staring at static snow for a long minute, piecing together what she just saw. The tape reached the end of the reel and automatically ejected. She numbly took it out and stared at the label again. The golem brand was still there, as if she expected it to evaporate after watching. The rest of the label still had that big X through it, as well. _Someone wanted this erased, forgotten_ —but, then, somebody couldn't follow through with that, else the tape wouldn't even be here.

That sound the kid made... That long, keening sound wrenched at something deeply buried in her gut and made her throat feel raw. Even without em-reading there was just... an expression, there, on that footage, that she couldn't deny. It was inhuman and horrific, yet... pure. Pure pain, pure rage, pure loss—and sheer, absolute...

 _I don't care,_ she thought, swallowing the unbecoming emotion. _I'm going to follow the rules and not care. It's not my job. As long as I don't care, nobody gets hurt. I don't care, I don't care, I don't CARE, I DON'T FUCKING CARE-_

She didn't care so hard the tape snapped in half between her hands. She looked down at her clenched fists, shards of plastic casing and her own claws digging into blanched skin. She bled just fine, staining the ruined film dark red.

 _'What Is The Most Powerful Emotion?'_

She knew.

She stood up, turned towards the door and walked out.

She didn't have the whole picture. Even if she could read every report and watch every tape in this lab, she probably never would, but the pieces she had were enough. _Damn it to hell_ , in the short weeks she'd been on this planet, she had broken every rule in her book for him.

...but there was still one left.

* * *

A/N: Phew, this chapter grew long, so I had to cut if off before the finale.

Expect the last parts soon!


	29. An Act of LOVE

She needed answers. She needed to find Doctor Gaster. It was a little more personal than business, now. She was ready to tear her way to the top of the lab if she had to, but fortune answered the door—or elevator, rather.

She heard the metal doors open and a pair of heavily-armored feet scraping the tile. "Who's there?" a familiar voice cast into the halls.

 _As if they really have to fucking ask_ , she thought. She turned an eye up to the inconspicuous black globe in the corner of the hall, recognizing a prime spot for a camera. They'd likely been tracking her from the moment that magician recomposed himself.

Speak of the devil- "We'll go easy on ya, if you just come forward!"

She strode around the corner and came face-to-face with the magician and his cohort, one of the walking suits of armor. It hefted a mace and stood with its giant feet braced to block the open elevator.

"Oh, good," the magician sighed. "You gave us a real slip, lady! Now come here and... hey, hey!" He pedaled backwards on thin air, his levitation going haywire as he realized the succubus wasn't exactly stopping for them. "Stop, will ya?!"

She snarled, picked up speed, and charged right at the pair. The magician yelped and pointed a rod in her direction, pellets of hot magic shooting from the tip like bullets. She jumped to avoid the barrage and hurtled into a pounce, landing on the magician and driving them both to the ground.

The armored suit growled and swung its mace sidelong—and too slow. She ducked, and it smashed a piece of wall next to the elevator's keypad.

"Hey hey hey!" the magician beneath her yelped. "Watch the property damage, ya big-" The succubus planted her wrists, buried her claws in his robes and kicked him through the nearest door, losing his words to the shadows. She then clambered out of the way of the mace as the big guard wrenched it free of the wall, bits of stucco peppering the floor.

"Rrrrrrrrrgh!" the guard roared, lifting the mace again, and the upswing took so long that the succubus had time to deal an almost _leisurely_ uppercut. Her claws tore through the face-plate and cinched the solitary glowing eye in the seat of the monster's helmet. She ripped it out with a rising shriek that drowned out the monster's gurgle of pain, and then it all exploded into black and grey.

The succubus staggered back, a touch shocked at how quickly it happened. The suit of armor and all the magic within had simply combusted, leaving scorch-marks and soot all over the floor and walls, and fine grains of ash between her fingers. _Turned straight to dust._

A choking noise came from the magician's last direction. "Bruce? Bruce?! Oh sweet Christ-"

The succubus didn't linger. She took the card the armored monster dropped, threw herself into the elevator and mashed the inside panel until the door closed.

The lift began to rise, and she caught her breath under the soft white lights. A glance over found her thighs bruised and scratched from the bones, her clothes in ribbons from the vent shaft, her hands still bleeding from that broken cassette, and now an unhealthy coat of dust across her arms and chest. Some of the magician's magic had clipped her too, leaving a stinging mark on her flank and a hole burned through the webbing of her lower left wing.

 _Fuck, I'm a sight,_ she realized. Terrifying everyone in her way would only help carve a path to the doctor, though.

The door opened to the cleanly-lit halls of the regular lab. For a second, she was relieved to see nobody around, but then she turned a corner and there was another guard. Its stubby wings buzzed in a circle towards her movement, and an extra second was spent registering her appearance. "Excuse me, all techs are supposed to be on floor C for—oh my!"

Her gust of wind magic hit the monster like a fire hose, splattering its bug-like body against the wall so hard that it, too, shattered into dust. The succubus felt a tinge of compunction over how _fucking fragile_ these people were, but didn't stop to dwell on it. She had three key cards now, and any combination should be enough to open any door she needed. The succubus combed through the floor, didn't find a trace of her target, and decided to hitch the elevator up to the next.

She had better luck the higher she went, it seemed. Sticking her head around a corner, she spied the tail of Doctor Gaster's unlucky assistant, slipping into an office. "Com'ere, bitch," she fumed, and raced up to the door. The second card she tried opened it.

Doctor Alphys was gathering a stack of papers from a desk into her arms, and didn't even look up as the intruder entered. "Um, yeah, I know, I'll be righ-"

Her glasses sailed off her nose and pinged against the ceiling, and her whole body flipped over the desk at the force of the kick to her underside. The room didn't even quit spinning before pins and needles sank into her sides, hoisted her by the coat and slammed her face-first into a broad, hard surface. The whole attack hit her like a gale, loose paper flurrying around the office in its wake.

"Ack! Ah...glrbl?" the drake babbled, dazed, and then drew a tight breath. The succubus held her throttled against the wall, the drake's feet paddling a foot off the ground.

Alphys chuckled haplessly once she realized what was happening. "I-Is this about last night? Eheh, heh..."

The succubus bared her fangs and kneed the drake in the crotch. There wasn't likely anything down there, but the sharp note of pain sucked through the drake's teeth was pretty satisfying. "No, but thanks for reminding me."

"Then w-w-what do you _want_?" Alphys squealed as she scrambled for air.

"Tell me a _fucking_ story." The succubus emphasized her demand by flexing her claws over the drake's scales.

"Grk-! I-I'll tell you whatever you want, just don't kill me!"

She loosened her grip, but continued to hold the drake off the floor with a steely arm. "That's the spirit. What the fuck happened to that human kid?"

"W-W-What? Human? I don't know what you mean, I don't-"

The succubus roughly flipped the drake around to look her captor in the eye. "Think back, pickle cunt! The kid you kept downstairs, the one on those tapes."

"The t-tapes...?" The succubus could practically see something _click_ in her mind, the drake's pupils shrinking to pinpricks. "Oh, god. Oh god, no, listen-"

As it happened, pleading did not temper the succubus's patience. She leaned into Alphys's face until the drake's eyes crossed, and darkly forced out, "WHAT. HAPPENED."

"Not here! They—I mean, he's not here anymore. I-It was forever ago, before even I was here, I wasn't even working here, you have to believe me-"

"Then tell me what you know."

"Ah...?!" Alphys squirmed as she gathered her panicked thoughts. "It was Doctor Gaster, he, ah—he wanted to protect him! From the king. The king's taking the souls of any humans that fall down here, but Doctor Gaster found him first. He was just a child, he thought it wasn't fair, he—h-he hid him in the basement, he-" The drake squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head feverishly. "-oh god please I shouldn't be saying this, I'll be in big trouble-"

"You're in big trouble right now!" the succubus blared. "If you don't want to answer to my claws, you'll keep talking."

Alphys gulped. "R-Right. The human, he—I don't know a lot about how he got here, honestly, I... he wanted to go back, I know that. He wanted to go back really badly, but it was, like, different...? It's like he didn't fall down here, like the other humans...? There was this machine, I don't know what it did, I don't have the schematics, somebody took them, it was so long ago...!" Her tone ramped up to sobbing the more she talked.

The succubus made her stop shaking by pressing the flabby flesh around the drake's neck harder into the wall. "Focus, you blubbery sack of tits."

A shrill, gasping noise emitted from her throat before Alphys continued. "R-Right, Doctor Gaster was going to help him, so he... h-he... they worked together on it, but something went wrong with the machine! It was an accident! It really was. It wasn't supposed to happen like that—nobody knew, nobody KNEW-"

"What _fucking_ happened?"

"Doctor Gaster did the best he could. He saved him, I mean he tried, most of the magic grafts took, but part of the soul broke off a-and wouldn't s-s-tick. He had to work fast, or it'd go to waste. The bones in the crypt were human ones, so h-he thought they'd be compatible. The golem was th-the best they could do, and the rest—oh _god_ , it took _so much magic_ but Doctor Gaster, he saved him—I mean, them! He saved them both, he did!"

The succubus stared at her, torn between horror and rage. Alphys sniffled. "I-It's just..."

The drake drew a ragged breath and wilted into her coat.

"It's just they weren't... human... anymore."

She wanted to curse. She wanted to call them all _bastards_ , _liars_ , _frauds_. She wanted to say _something_. The succubus had never been short of expletives for any situation in her life.

She hadn't noticed she had released Alphys until she heard a soft _thud_ as the drake hit the floor. Doctor Gaster's assistant looked up at her with a wide, frozen look, trembling too hard to make a move to escape. She wanted to slay this monster on the spot and spit on her corpse, but desecrating a pile of dust just wasn't the same.

Neither of them could say anything. It was all kind of pathetic. She stooped over the drake and watched her squeak and cringe in fear as the succubus swiped the assistant's key-card. She then walked out, and for good measure punched the keypad to the door clean off. It fell at her feet with a clatter of plastic and sparking copper wires, and the door slid closed, clipping short the drake's cry to, "W-Wait!"

The succubus might have kept her as a hostage, or pressed her for directions, but as she stormed away she recognized there was no chance the drake wouldn't set her up in a trap, so it was just as well. She was on her own. She was going to find Doctor Gaster, get back what he owed her, and make him pay—for everything.

She was outraged on several levels. For starters, that thunder-prick KNEW Papyrus was a golem, and had her try to read him, anyway. She had suspected it all along (and eventually confirmed it on her own), but not telling her right away was an incredibly dick move and a waste of her time. If Gaster knew Sans was the only readable one of the pair, he should have just told her to pick him. It was probably done on purpose to stall for time while they tampered with her crystal charm, trying to synthesize it—which made her duly mad at herself for falling for it.

 _I am a fucking idiot._ For another thing, this just reinforced that Sans was, after all, NOT a golem, nor a monster. He was something else.

 _It's just..._

 _'we came from the same person.'_

 _...they weren't human..._

 _'i'm already a skeleton, so... figure it can't hurt.'_

 _...anymore._

Something worse. And she was _determined_ to make the doctor answer for it.

The next monster she met was a... frog clad in leather pads and chainmail—okay fine, whatever. Since the amphibious monster was only as tall as her knees, she didn't have a problem punting it within an inch of its life.

"Where's Gaster?" she snarled as she held the frog up by the scruff of his cape.

The frog croaked up a bubble of magic that fizzled into vapor, his magic spent. "rrrrbbt—on the C deck. Big test today."

"Show me where."

The frog-monster's ghoulish features twisted into a mocking grin. "rrrbt—why should I?"

She rattled him inside his armor. "Because I'll fucking vaporize you!"

The frog attempted to blink (its eyelids were out of sync.) "Fine. But you'll never get close, you hag."

"We'll see," she spat, and carried the subdued monster to a service elevator. He guided her to another floor, and once the lift opened and she looked across the long antechamber to the heavy door at the opposite end, she saw what the frog meant.

Three more iron-clad brutes, four of those cricket-like monsters, two more magicians, six monsters she'd only describe as "a big walking devil-eye with horns" and ten of the frog's kin were guarding the door. The lot bared their weapons at her in union.

She would have been disappointed at any less. _At least this security crew has its shit together._

"Drop the froggit!" one of the bugs demanded. She had considered slinging the battered monster back into the elevator and shuttling it away (she was going to spare it just for being cooperative, and she kind of liked its spunk), although crushing it in front of its allies just to defy them suddenly felt appealing.

She then thought about what the frog said ( _This little twat called me a hag_ ) and hit upon a compromise. She set him down gently against the wall behind her. "I want you to watch this, gonad-sucker." She then turned to face the mob, braced her feet wide and cracked her knuckles. "Come and get him, cunt rags!"

The crickets traded looks with the magicians while the frogs filled the room with a warbling croak of outrage. Then the crew charged towards her at once.

 _Oh good, everyone's here to fight._ If there was one language she didn't need em-reading to implicitly understand, it was violence.

And she was _fucking fluent_ in it.

There was mere seconds before the stomping line of monsters reached her, and she wouldn't get a window of time like that again, so the very first thing she did was gather a funnel of wind magic and hurl it down the hall. It had the intended effect of catching the airborne crickets and turning them into dusty pancakes against the ceiling, with the bonus of throwing the levitating magicians off-balance.

Then _their_ magic caught up to her. The way these monsters used offensive magic... Her instructors would call it qi-magic or 'mana energy,' and it's tangential to spirit magic, just on the material side of it. All their attacks were projectiles hewed from the same magi-corporeal substance as their own monster bodies. Magicians from her home-world, on the other hand, were trained to channel material magic from the planet, since it was a nigh-inexhaustible source, if more difficult to grasp and mold (her crystal charm was specifically crafted to help.) Monsters just used the magic innate to their own beings, so it flowed more easily and appeared more readily, yet would exhaust their mana much more quickly.

It was basically the magical equivalent of ripping off one's own arm and throwing it at the enemy, and it really freaked her out. A swarm of _magic flies_ buffeted her face, and she tumbled forward to shake them off, her heels smashing onto the crown of another frog so hard that it disintegrated.

By the time she rolled onto her feet, three frogs surrounded her. One had picked up a spear dropped by the crickets and jabbed it at her chest, so she had to roll onto her other heel to dodge, grab it by the shaft and jerk it away. The frog holding the spear had a grip so sticky that she just picked him off the ground instead of disarming him, which was fine—she subsequently used his body to batter the other two frogs.

A magician appeared behind her, as she could tell by the hailstorm of magic bullets blistering her back. She flipped the spear in hand around and lunged backwards, driving it through the magician's robes. It was vanquished with a dusty _poof_.

The next six frogs were just stupid enough to throw themselves directly at her, and kicking them across the room almost became a game. She got lucky with one, sent it sailing into an eyeball-monster, and both collapsed at once. Before she could clear the floor of the swarming bastards, however, they suddenly gave her a wide berth. She glanced over her shoulder, saw the suit of armor looming overhead, and cursed.

The first fall of its mace nearly took both her wings off, so she decided to use them while she still had them. She kicked off a springy frog, grabbed the air and glided in a tight circle around the armor suit. It teetered trying to follow her, so all it took was a kick to the chest to knock it off balance and to the ground. In the shock of the impact she ripped off its helmet and squashed its magic eye, snuffing the monster out.

The other magician fell on her with a cry, its big gloved hands covering her face from behind, and she bellowed and thrashed to throw it off. It was a keen diversion, but the second she glimpsed the second armor suit rearing back to strike, she pivoted around, throwing the magician into the blow. The pile of robes turned to billowy dust under the armor suit's mace, and it roared in distress. She borrowed its moment of grief to kick the mace out of its hand and then shatter its face-place with her elbow.

The brute crumpled on the spot, and she vaulted over its falling form to slam both heels into the eyeball standing behind it. The creature evaporated under her weight so fast that it didn't fail to surprise her, and in the moment between a monster being _there_ and a monster being dust she lost her footing and skid onto her hips. "Fuck!"

A spray of hot white magic scalded her arms as she held them up to shield her face, and she growled at the offending eyeball. Then the third mace drove into her side and knocked her across the room.

She heard one of her ribs _crack_ , and an eyeball _cackle_ , and she couldn't get to her feet without the whole room swaying. The armor suit took its time closing the distance, yet all she needed was to gulp down one breath to get her wits back. She spit a glob of blood on the floor and looked up in time to watch the mace streak down.

The succubus dropped and rolled, avoiding getting smashed by inches. She swept her leg around to knock the armor suit's feet out, but trying to move a ton of iron and steel plating with a kick turned out to be a dumb move. The suit lifted the mace for another strike and she took a dive between its legs, avoiding it and grabbing purchase on the monster's ridged backside. She scrambled up its body and sat on its shoulders. The monster twisted around and raised its free hand, reflexively trying to grab and throw her off. She clutched its gauntlet and simultaneously wrapped her thighs around the suit's thick head.

When the monster yanked her off its back, its head neatly popped off with her. She made sure to grab its magic eye in both hands and rip it in half.

The handful of monsters still standing watched the succubus appear from a cloud of ashen remains, turn towards them, rear onto four limbs like a large cat and spread her wings with a ferocious roar. They scattered, fleeing down the elevator.

"Chicken-fuckers!" she shrieked after them, sinking to her knees. "Run while you can. I am a FUCKING. DRAGON."

The hall looked like a grisly barbeque pit. She was bleeding. She felt dizzy.

 _Can't stop now. This shit's not finished yet._

She got up. The key-cards she took from the guards didn't work. The drake's card did.

She didn't know what to expect in the next room. An array of lab equipment shouldn't have surprised her, yet there was something uncanny that made her stop just inside the door.

Centered on the wide floor were four metal spires, each as tall as two men. They were fitted with coils emitting arcing electric sparks that formed a tent over a globe-like apparatus ringed with plated silver. Notches in the silver burned with unnatural light as the rings freely drifted around the globe. The whole device hummed with power that made her bones shake the way only magic could.

It looked like a gate—a real gate, a _ring-gate_ —the very thing she used to travel to this world. For a moment she was too gob-smacked to move. Her very first encounter with the doctor trickled to the front of her mind.

 _'Can You Not Simply Build A Gate Yourself?'_

 _'It's not that easy! I can't just... it's fucking complicated, okay? You need to use the right spells, and enchant all your materials, and you can only build one in certain places, where the lifestream is, uh... I don't know the fucking word. The point is that I can't even do it here, because there's some weird... field? Magic wall? It's shutting the planet's flow out.'_

 _'That Would Be The Barrier.'_

 _'Yeah, that huge, fuck-off, cock-block of a wall that's keeping me from leaving. How the fuck am I supposed to get through that?'_

 _'You Are Not. That Is Rather The Point. However... We Might Be Able To Make A Deal.'_

 _'What do you mean?'_

 _'...Tell Me More, About These Gates.'_

That Gaster and his crew were able to construct this homebrewed replica of an interstellar gate shrine from their own insulated understanding of magic and her... _colorful_ testimony was nothing short of incredible, but without being built on a life-spring, she had to wonder what was powering it, exactly-

Then she saw it off to the side, hovering over a pedestal connected to the shrine: her crystal charm, emitting midnight-blue pulses. There was that dark power she found for him-

 _in a dusty bed, in a broken heart_

-being used as fuel for the gate he promised to build.

Doctor Gaster was speaking. He stood with his back to her before the shrine, gesticulating grandly and pausing only to quietly say, "You Are Late." He then continued to address some crowd she had to look up to find. Next to the ceiling was a window-box, in which a dozen lab technicians peered down at the shrine over their instrument panels. They didn't seem to notice her, but were instead glued to the doctor's every word—or rather to the apple-sized, white-shelled orb hovering around Gaster's head. The orb was broadcasting some noise in tandem with the doctor's voice that she realized after a few headache-inducing seconds was a translation.

The conflicting sounds made it difficult to em-read him, and she wasn't terribly interested in what he was saying, anyway—some speech about "The Freedom All Monsters Deserve" and "The Stars Will Finally Open To Us" and "No Longer Will We Be Shackled To Mankind. We Will Become The Masters Of Our Own Destiny." It all sounded grand, really, if she could care.

...She had a master, once. Master Peacekeepers were the top of their breed, and she used to stare at them the way these techs did at the doctor—with that same glassy-eyed idolatry. It was a privilege and honor to be assigned to one, and she was very fortunate to work under Master Tair. He taught her many things about working in the field, and visiting the stars. _"If you ever want to go home,"_ he had said, _"You need only draw a gate."_

She had scoffed at the time and said you couldn't just _draw_ a gate, and even if you could, she'd never want to go back. He called her cocky, and drew one, anyway—with stones and sticks and dragon bones, things kissed by nature. He taught her how to find a planet's hot-spots, where the lifestream gysered from the earth, and how to channel that energy using her crystal charm as a fulcrum. He taught her that all warriors are artists. He taught her how to really _fight_ , how to really _live_ -

And then he died, and the only thing she learned was that it was her fault.

When she looked at this gate shrine, she saw nothing of Tair's unique flair—the care and personality and art of it. It just looked sterile, like something found on an operating table. She supposed that was appropriate, given the builder. Something didn't feel _complete_ , however, and after a moment she realized what was lacking: coordinate runes.

As soon as that thought struck her, Doctor Gaster waved his hand over the crystal charm and opened the gate. She had to shield her face against the explosion of light and implosion of sound as a gaping tear in magic, spirit and space swallowed the silver globe and blossomed within the shrine. When she braced herself and looked, she saw a well filled with stars, shimmering cold and impossibly deep.

If any of them had asked her—and they didn't, the stupid assholes—she could tell them exactly how dangerous it was to open a gate with no coordinates. Random coordinates were crazy enough (they were how she got here, after all), but opening a gate with NOTHING to guide the wormhole was basically signing a suicide pact with the universe. It was a fountain of untapped chaos that could send anyone literally anywhere in space-time: a barren asteroid field, the core of a sun, a swamp in the most remote reaches of the galaxy, or simply the worst kind of _nowhere_ , crammed into a never-expiring rift between dimensions, left to simultaneously not exist and always exist.

But hell, she was an exotic magician, not an astro-physicist, so nobody asked her. She was actually impressed that a gate could be contained in this laboratory at all, much less the room-sized apparatus the monsters had built, here. The doctor really was a genius of sorts, if apparently insane. And now here it was: a gate to the stars, warbling in neatly-controlled entropy like a grandiose centerpiece.

It was hard to imagine that everything she'd experienced in the past couple of months was culminating at this point in time and space.

It was harder to imagine that without this gate and all the strings attached, she never would have paid a swear jar, or been punched by a fish lady, or learned about _Santa Claus_ , or listened to a steady stream of awful jokes over a steady stream of worse food, or grappled a pile of bones with her own soul, or been thrown into a dungeon filled with human corpses, or slaughtered a score of people on her way to learn that all she knew about monsters, really, at the end of the day, was that they couldn't be trusted—and that they shouldn't trust her.

There was the exit. There was everything she wanted.

"Ah... It Is Truly Beautiful."

And there _he_ was: Doctor Gaster, the root of all this terrible shit, trying as cold and clinically as possible to teach her with raw research that the most powerful emotion was _sorrow_.

 _Fuck that. I have a better answer._

"Hey, asshole."

Finally, one of her insults made him stop. He startled at her, and so did a hare up in the control room. Before he could summon anything with his fast-talking hands, her combat training jumped to the fore, and she grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm behind his back, earning a pronounced, "Gah!"

There was a swell of something _black_ behind her mind's eye, and a kind of dark magic she could barely fathom began to boil beneath the doctor's mask. She got a fast impression that he was not just the boss around here because he was _smart_.

She snapped his wrist, breaking the bone, and with a clipped cry the magic fizzled out. "You-" he rasped, undertones of blind confusion marring his speech beyond her em-reading's range. "Yeah, don't fuckin' try it," she rebuffed.

What really got her was that he was _surprised_ by all this—as if he never expected the murderous, raving dragon-lady to waltz through the lab and _completely ruin his shit_ at the first sign of getting double-crossed. Perhaps he gave her too much credit for being a civilized, rational person. He was about to pay for it. She wanted to make sure he knew WHY he was being assaulted: for wasting her time, keeping her prisoner and making her feel like an idiot, just for starters. "That's for trying to fuck me over."

She yanked him around to face the gate. The un-coordinated portal breathed cold fire that tousled her hair and made the flaps of his coat slap her ankles, and its sound seemed to swallow all others in the room. She then leaned close to his ear (or whatever... hole he had that would pass for an ear), her knee braced against the hand locked tight against his back.

 _"And this is for Sans."_

She kicked him into the gate. His body flew into the portal and then appeared to fold into the wormhole like a paper swan, sharp angles splitting and coalescing until the gate was satisfied with its meal and collapsed with a hard clap. His translator orb clattered to the floor, the silver rings stopped spinning and grew still, and the last trace of the doctor's existence on this planet (or perhaps this plane of reality altogether) vanished.

The succubus stamped her foot and crowed, "You know what else burns good cold? _Revenge_ , bitch." She probably should have said that part first, before the kicking. Whatever. He still got the message.

There was a keening noise behind her that read on her em-spectrum between "no!" and "why?!" The succubus turned to watch Doctor Alphys stumble into the room. The little drake stopped and stared goggle-eyed at the scene, the papers she was holding tumbling out of her limp fingers. Her expression then melted into such pure shock and defeat that the succubus had no rejoinder (although she did notice the chipped glasses on the drake's snout with a twitch of humor.)

The succubus looked at her crystal charm, waiting patiently for her on the pedestal, and then directly at the drake. "Don't try and stop me."

The succubus grabbed the charm and fondled it between her fingers, appraising its condition. She was just happy to have it back at long last. It was still blue. _Looks like it's got enough juice for one more jump, if I add my magic to it._ She smiled wryly. _...Thanks, bonehead._

The succubus marched towards the idle shrine, working quickly. The lab staff and whatever guards were left weren't just going to sit and watch her escape, even though Alphys wasn't moving a muscle. She had a minute, maybe two.

It takes six runes to decently coordinate a gate, and eight if you're being really precise. In a pinch, you can get away with five, and she drew only as many symbols as she needed in a circle on the floor around the pillars, using her crystal charm as a sort of magic chalk. The runes glimmered ever-faintly with that dark power (she _refused_ to call it sadness) and reflected in the polished silver around the central node.

She then stepped up to the pedestal and offered her charm to it once more. _This next part's going to be a real trick_ , she thought.

"Doctor Alphys!" carried across the hall. She glanced through the open door and saw the monsters pouring out of the elevator. Some of them recoiled at the aftermath of the magical firefight and the remains of their comrades caking the floor and walls. Others focused on the drake, and started to run towards her, but then skidded to a halt once they spotted the succubus. They gathered uneasily behind the catatonic drake, their faces showing a heavy mixture of grief, outrage, confusion and fear. She would normally revile the smell of cowardice on the enemy, but with this crowd she just felt... tired. It was time to go.

She lit up the gate. The portal billowed open to full size, stirring the air around the room into a whirlwind that scattered the papers Alphys dropped and made the other monsters duck and cringe. The succubus breathed it all in—the _wind_ , her favorite element—and tasted her freedom from all this dust and gloom.

"...w-wait."

She looked back. The drake was on her knees, pleading. It was the perfect opportunity to look down on her and tell her she deserved it... but in a strange way (just not pity, _never_ pity), she understood. Everything here was ruined, now. This foreigner was going to leave behind nothing but failure and loss. The consequences of what she'd done today would probably ring across this little bubble of a world for years, and Doctor Alphys would have nothing good to show for it—all over one bad deal with a succubus.

She probably didn't deserve it. But there was no going back, now.

She closed her eyes and sighed. The pain in her ribs made her eyes sting. Or, maybe even…

She let her next thought fall on whoever would hear it. "This is why I don't get attached to my marks."

The succubus grabbed her charm, tore it away from the pedestal, and leapt into the gate.

* * *

A/N: Next is an epilogue, and then that's a wrap. Muchos thanks to all y'all for the feedback along the way.


	30. Epilogue

Sans tip-toed into the pub. The stealth was kind of exaggerated, and unnecessary. The door already had a tiny bell that heralded entering customers. The skeleton was just feeling _extra cautious_ around his old haunt today. He had waited three days before even setting foot in this part of town, just to play it safe.

The lunch rush had passed, and the regulars were at their day jobs. Gary the fisher-fish (because he refused to be called a 'fishy fisherman') was getting an early start on tomorrow's hangover, his head dunked into a mug of ale and presumably passed-out. Other than that, Grillby's was empty, and the barkeep was tidying glasses behind the counter.

Sans gingerly took his usual seat at the bar. He looked around, noting how well the place had cleaned up. The jukebox was wrecked and there were a lot of vacant spots where chairs used to be, but, well... His eye-lights fell on the glass jar on the corner of the counter. It had a crack down one side that was artfully turned to face the kitchen and a piece of tape across the front. The old label had been ripped away, and 'tip jar' was now penned in its place.

"heh," Sans snorted. The noise prompted Grillby to turn around. The fire monster could adroitly control the temperature of his flame to make others around him comfortable, yet the heat radiating from him presently conjured a few beads of sweat on Sans's skull.

The skeleton was the first to clear his throat and break the awkward spell. "...welp."

Grillby continued to stare. Sans kept sweating, but it wasn't really from the heat.

Finally, with stoicism tempered by years at his craft, Grillby began to speak. _'...I should have you banned.'_

Sans sank into a shrug and stretched his grin wide, at a loss.

 _'...but.'_ The barkeep's flames crinkled in an expression nobody could decipher, even telepathically. _'...That was amusing.'_ He then retreated into the kitchen.

Sans swiped his forehead with an audible, "phew." He was forgiven, apparently—probably. He let himself relax (his number-one skill) and waited for either the usual crowd to turn up or his work-break to end.

After a while of clattering pots in the back, Grillby re-appeared to sweep the floor. _'How are you doing today?'_

"oh, you know..." Sans answered in one long breath, "tired, hungry, dissociated from the present iteration of linear reality in the face of endlessly looping deviations at the whims of an unknown anomaly. the usual."

 _'...'_

"heh, did i say all that out loud? remind me not to do that on the next pass."

 _'Not even sure I want to know what you're talking about.'_

"ignorance is bliss, they say. i couldn't tell ya."

Grillby balanced a thoughtful look over his broomstick. _'I can help with the hungry part, maybe. For the rest, all we have is alcohol.'_

"best idea you've had yet, grillbz. i'll start with some fries."

As the fire monster went back to fix his order, the door jingled. Sans didn't have to turn around to recognize the plodding staccato of a duck's footsteps. The red mallard hopped onto his own bar-stool with a huff, and dealt the other monster at the bar an icy look.

"...malk."

"Sans."

Grillby brought out the order of fries and set it in front of Sans. When the hot food went untouched, the barkeep stood back and watched his customers' staring-duel play out for over a minute. At length, the fire monster crossed his arms and clicked an orange tongue of flame. _'You're both being childish. You need to apologize.'_

Both parties balked at once.

"I'm not apologizing to him!"  
"i'm not sorry, either."

Malk swiveled on his stool and puffed out his chest. "I wasn't the dumb mook who came on my property and assaulted me, okay?"

"yeah?" Sans bit back. "and i wasn't the brilliant son of a bitch who brought a cat in here for dog night."

"I didn't know it was dog night!"

"walking in and seeing all the dogs wasn't a huge tip-off, buddy?"

"There's always dogs here!"

 _'You should've known,'_ Grillby interjected. _'It's the first Thursday in August.'_

"So you're taking his side?" the duck exclaimed. He flicked a wing in umbrage towards the barkeep and then stuck a primary feather at the slouching skeleton. "It was HIS cat, not mine! Besides, I wasn't the genius who took all those pussycats and threw them into a goddamn public dumpster!" Malk punctuated his rant by grabbing a napkin off the bar and slinging it at Sans. "The hell did you think would come of that, you stupid, lazy asshole?"

The paper stuck to his cranium for an absurd moment before slipping down into his jacket hood. Sans absorbed the (verbal and napkin-flavored) abuse steadily, his elbows folded on the bar and only one eye-socket turned towards his assailant.

Malk leaned back against the bar, breathing steam out the slits of his nostrils. He then shook his head and said, "What am I doin', posturin' like a damn greaser jones'n for a brawl, like you're gonna actually get up off your ass and fight back. Bet you never thrown a punch in your life. You'd just sit there and take a poundin', ya big inert shithead."

Sans chuckled at the thought. His laughter faded into uneasy silence.

"...Phew, poor Doggo," Malk glumly mused. "That was brutal."

"yeah, his face looked bad. i don't know if gog and doggit are going to get up again, either. it got really hairy, there."

The duck narrowed his eyes at him. "Tell me that wasn't a hair pun."

"heh." Sans quirked a look to the ceiling, apparently impressed at himself. "unintentional, for a change."

Malk snorted. "Tell you what, it WAS kinda funny when you dunked that cat into the river."

Sans took a fry off his plate and nibbled it. "eheh. papyrus didn't think so."

"Papyrus can't appreciate a good dunking."

Sans ruminated over the bar for a minute. He then drew a coin from his pocket, steadied it on a thimble of blue magic and flipped it across the bar into the jar. Perfect shot.

Malk threw back a quizzical look. "The hell is that for?"

"...that's for calling you a son of a bitch."

Malk pulled the coin out and inspected it. "Huh. It's even real gold this time." He turned the coin over to Grillby. "No hard feelings, friend. Grillbz, go get my favorite stupid, lazy asshole a beer."

Grillby nodded, and went to grab a mug. _'Gladly.'_

 _All's well that ends well_ , Sans supposed. As long as he still had a place at Grillby's, his life could pretty much go back to normal, like nothing ever happened. That was the thing about the underground: nothing ever changed, really. It was a blessing and a curse.

"I guess it's back to the usual around here." Malk seemed to read his thoughts.

"...she's gone, you know."

"Who? Whore? Really?" At each word his head kicked up a notch, stretching his scruffy, feathered neck towards the ceiling. In poor lighting he almost looked like Lesser Dog.

Sans thanked Grillby for the beer and took a swig. "yeah. don't think she'll be coming back."

"No shit?" Malk made an odd whistling sound through his bill. "Didn't break your heart, did she? I swear on my mother's life, if she did, I can round up Rez and the boys and we can go break her legs-"

Sans waved the wild notion down. "no, that's... com'on, malk, we weren't even like that."

"I'm just sayin'." The duck shrugged and cracked his broad knuckles. "Hell, don't even need a good excuse to whoop that bitch's ass. She'd been nothin' but trouble since she walked into town, y'know? Good riddance, I say."

"heheh," Sans said. He tried to inflect his laughter with some mirth, but as always it fell flat. Modulating his voice was always the trickiest part about being a monster. Papyrus never seemed to struggle with it (perhaps because he only spoke in one cadence: 'LOUD'.) He would think that a magic body enabled _more_ expression, not less, but that was perhaps a luxury for real monsters.

...heh. Monster bodies.

"why was the skeleton sittin' by himself at the bar?"

Malk took a second longer than usual to catch the whiff of a joke. His head _plunked_ against the bar with a long-suffering sigh. "Why's that, pal?"

"because he's got no- _body_ to drink with."

"God. Just, god. Grillby, you sure we can't ban him?"

"heheheheheh."

Like nothing ever happened. He ate his fried chips and turned Malk's words over in his head: 'good riddance.' _There_ was an idea, that it was _good_ to be rid of someone bad.

That couldn't be all true, could it? Nobody is _all_ bad. He tried to dredge up anything _good_ that came out of her visit. Sans stopped munching on his fries to consider it, and realized that since he started making an effort to actually chew his food, his hiccups had gone away.

...That was something, he supposed. Papyrus would certainly appreciate it, and he lived to make his brother happy. Hell, Papyrus actually liked her. Granted, his brother tried to befriend everybody, but the succubus couldn't be ALL bad, if she had Pap's endorsement.

She also posted his and his brother's bail (the spare shed next to their house wasn't exactly jail, nor was Grillby a jailer, but the effect was the same.)

There was also... that thing she taught him to do, with his magic and a spare bone, but that wasn't anything to brag about. God help him if Papyrus caught him doing it, too. It was embarrassing, and how would he explain it? Just when he thought he'd been lucky enough to dodge the puberty bullet (he was too young for that when the accident happened, leaving his new monster body stunted forever), a succubus came along and thrust it into his lap, so-to-speak. Not for the first time, he considered Papyrus lucky—but that was a conversation he was _never_ having with his brother, if he could help it. Apart from the fleeting pleasure, it was just extra maintenance and a nuisance he had to deal with, now. He was getting along just fine before she came into the picture and... made all that more complicated for him.

It was stupid to let her get close to him at all. Given her 'client,' however, it was probably inevitable. He figured he was simply cutting to the chase, and besides, he'd done it to protect Papyrus. It was a "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" kind of deal, until he could figure her out. It just didn't help that after a while, he started to feel... unnaturally attached.

He wondered if she felt the same way—even just a little. She was always so caustic towards him and... well, everyone, that it was hard to tell. He never really did sort out what her deal was, but he liked to imagine that his brother was a good influence on her (she seemed to like those movie nights, despite her impatient whining.) Papyrus just brought out the best in everybody.

The worst part might be that she probably knew the truth, about him and Papyrus. She'd read both their souls, after all—wasn't that her specialty? She'd have to be a complete idiot to NOT figure it out. The thought of her walking off with his weightiest secret chilled him to the... well, bone. He hated to imagine what she'd do with that choice bit of information, especially around the royal scientist. It was a toss-up between 'nothing good' and 'nothing at all.'

And he definitely didn't want to be thinking about Doctor Gaster again, but now he was, so...

He absently scratched his ribs through his shirt (sometimes he could close his eyes and count all the stitches in his soul, waiting for them to snap, one by one) and reached out telepathically. _'hey, grillbz.'_

 _'What is it?'_

 _'think, uh... we could talk for a minute? kinda private-like?'_

Grillby didn't even break pace at washing the dishes, much less look over his shoulder. For a fire monster, he always knew how to play it cool. _'Is everything all right?'_

 _'yeah, it's good. everything's good. i just... got some heavy stuff on my mind. don't know if there's anybody i can trust to... well i trust papyrus, y'know? more than anybody. but this, i can't... uh. it's not safe. you know what i mean?'_

 _'It's fine. I'm listening.'_

 _'right, thanks. it's about... uh.'_ Even his thoughts were stammering, which felt weird. _'there's some stuff that happened lately, got me thinking about the past. stuff that got me thinking about how pap and i first got here. i never got wasted enough to tell you that one, huh?'_

He still didn't look, but Grillby's gloves did slow to a stop, dishrag buried in a crusty mug. _'No... but you've certainly piqued my interest. Go on.'_

The door jingled. Sans wasn't going to mind another customer approaching the bar (there wasn't anybody else in this town who could eavesdrop on a telepathic conversation), but then an all-too-familiar voice made him jump in his seat.

"SANS, YOU NEED TO COME BACK TO THE HOUSE."

Sans blinked widely at his brother, and even Grillby turned his head, mildly surprised. "aww com'on, pap. it's still really early. we're just getting warmed up here."

Papyrus performed an interesting pantomime of a clock. "I KNOW THE TIME. IT'S YOUR SECOND BREAK TODAY! AND IT'S ALREADY RUNNING LONG! MUCH LIKE MY TRIM AND MUSCULAR ARMS, YOU SEE?" He dropped his limbs out of the "2 o'clock" position, and his brows switched direction to show concern. "BUT IT'S NOT THAT. THERE'S A WOMAN ON THE PHONE. SHE SOUNDED QUITE DISTRESSED. I THINK YOU SHOULD TALK TO HER."

"uhh, anybody we know?"

"I DIDN'T GET HER NAME, BUT SHE ASKED FOR YOU." Papyrus thumbed his chin and hummed. "ACTUALLY, I THINK IT'S THAT DOCTOR LADY AGAIN?"

 _'speak of the devil,'_ Sans thought grimly, making sure Grillby heard that. _'rain check on that talk, grillbz.'_

The barkeep nodded. _'I'm holding you to that.'_

"all right," Sans sighed, sliding down from his comfortable perch and warm fries. "let's see what she wants."

If this person was who Sans thought she was, she had better have a damn good reason for interrupting his story (and beer, although he was electing not to mention either to Papyrus.) His brother passed him the cordless phone and Sans walked with the handset out the front door, as far away from the house as he could get without losing signal from the phone's base.

"y'ello."

The first sound to spill out of the other end was an odd, croaking gasp, and for a second Sans thought they were getting crank-called by that froggit outside Temmie Village again.

"hey, this isn't fu-"

 _"Oh god you're there, oh god oh god Sans is that you?"_

She sounded—well, 'panicked' was putting it lightly. "uh, alphys?"

 _"Sans! Ohmygodlisten it's really bad, really really bad I know I said I wouldn't call againandyouaskedmenottobutI-"_

"hey hey, slow it down, there."

Another harsh breath. Alphys sounded like she might pop, if only somebody stuck her with a pin. _"Sans you have to listen it's all bad now I can't believe this is happening he's gone, he's GONE-"_

Sans was faintly aware that he was making a soothing motion with his free hand while talking on a phone, which was both useless and ridiculous. "whoa, sheesh, cool your bones. who's gone? what happened?"

Getting Alphys to stop hyperventilating enough to weave a coherent narrative was like pulling teeth, but after a time he garnered the key details: the who, the what, the when. The more he coaxed her to talk, the more she seemed to relax from frenetic stammering to steady sobbing. He let her ramble for a while, the words kind of drifting out the other side of his skull as he very slowly processed the meaning of it all.

Doctor Gaster was gone.

...It was _her_ fault.

When he looked down, he saw the snow at his feet had been trampled into a figure-eight. He hadn't even registered his feet moving. "...huh."

 _"-and all this dust in the halls I mean oh god the cleaning crew doesn't want to touch it and somebody has to tell their families and they're looking at me because I'M second in command but I can't even report—Sans are you still there?!"_

"uh, yeah, i'm still listening. sorry."

 _"I-I-I just don't know what to do. What do I DO?"_

"just go to the king and tell him what happened."

 _"Oh my GOD what do I tell Asgore are you kidding? We were going to surprise His Majesty with this whole project and it was going to solve everything and we wouldn't even need the other human souls and now we can't even start the machine again, it's practically JUNK, she took that crystal with her and the anomaly went away and none of our instruments can find it again and it's like it NEVER EXISTED which is the way some of the staff are acting, about Doctor Gaster, it's freaking me out and I can't even-"_

"it'll be fine. you can-"

 _"It's so much pressure and without Doctor Gaster it'll just be me answering to Asgore and I d-don't know if I can do what he's asking, these human souls, th-these trials and tests, and the CORE, it's just too much on my own. I..."_ Finally, a break to breathe. _"...can you please just come here?"_

Every phantom hackle he had stood on end.

 _"Not permanently, you know, I-I know you hate coming back here, but you're the only one who can read the doctor's manuscripts and I just need help to talk to the king, just to help smooth it over, and maybe we can figure out something together for-"_

 **"no."**

 _"I..."_ There was a pregnant pause, and then, _"...what?"_

"i said no. i'm not going back. you can't make me put papyrus at risk like that."

 _"P-Please, I... I can't do this alone. I can't."_ She sounded utterly crushed. His heart felt likewise in a vice. Forcing his voice out turned the winch a little tighter with every word.

"nothing's changed, including my answer. and don't ever call this number again."

He hung up—and then sank to the ground, sitting lamely in the snow. The streets of Snowdin were damningly quiet.

A pair of boots softly crunched over the ice behind him. "WHAT WAS THAT? WHO WAS THAT WOMAN?"

Sans had to muster the energy to swallow the lump in his throat—skeletons didn't even _have_ throats. Nothing in life was fair. "wrong number, bro."

Not a lie, entirely—it was the wrong idea to call him, at least. He knew rationally that it was near-suicide to go back to those labs. If there was even the slightest chance of the king learning the truth about... what he was... it could be the end of him, and Papyrus as well. He couldn't bear to take a precious thing away from Papyrus, who was sweet and amazing and—hell, probably more of a whole person than Sans was, at this point.

Maybe he was underestimating King Asgore's mercy, but Doctor Gaster's initial reaction to Sans's appearance in the underground taught him otherwise, and even after the accident... There was a lot of work put into making sure Asgore never knew. It felt wrong to undo it all, yet it felt just as bad to hang Alphys out to dry. She knew their secret too, and still hadn't said anything.

 _If only the accident had killed me-_

A pair of spindly, garishly-gloved arms suddenly hooked around his ribcage and hoisted him off the ground. Sans let out a startled, "-wooph!" and then let Papyrus drape his lazy bones around his 'big' brother's broad shoulders.

"uh...? what's up?"

"YOU, SILLY BONES. I'M BEING SUPPORTIVE! I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAS YOU DOWN, BUT I'LL PICK YOU UP."

 _...then Papyrus wouldn't exist. Guess it would be wrong to take that back._

"oh. ...heh, thanks."

"YOU'RE ALWAYS WELCOME." Papyrus struck a flamboyant pose meant to impress, although it was lost on the absent audience and a brother whose view was blocked by a tall head. "IT MUST BE GREAT, HAVING A SIBLING AS COOL AS ME."

"yeah..." Sans folded his short arms around his brother's neck and rested his cheekbone atop his skull. "you're the best part of me, papyrus. don't ever change."

"I'M NOT SURE WHAT THAT MEANS, BUT YOU DID SAY I AM THE BEST, SO I AM INCLINED TO AGREE." He ebulliently pointed towards the west end of town. "COME NOW, I MUST RETURN TO MY NEW, GLORIOUS POST! AND YOU TO YOUR REGULAR, SLIGHTLY-LESS-GLAMOROUS ONE. I SHALL GIVE YOU A LIFT, BECAUSE I'M THAT GENEROUS!"

"heh, beats using my own legs. sounds good to me."

"YOU WOULD SAY THAT! NYEH."

Papyrus dropped Sans at his outpost and then dutifully bounced off to his own. Left to his own devices, Sans stared at his mold-eaten sentry booth, the sundry doodles of skeletons on the countertop and the dark blue brand drawn into the wood before deciding, hell, his legs could stand for some use, after all. He took a long walk into the woods.

The stripped brambles above and cold dirt below built an echo chamber for his swimming thoughts. He couldn't stop wondering what that succubus was doing, now. Maybe she'd finally found her way home, or to someplace nicer than that (judging by the bits of background she fed him, her home world kind of sounded like a hell hole.) Maybe she'd turned up at the same place Doctor Gaster did... somewhere unmentionable. Twice he stopped meandering, stared into the woods and half-expected her to just show up and say she was kidding, about leaving. Nobody could get through the barrier, right?

He shook those ideas off. That was stupid daydreaming. When had she ever been kidding? And of course, there was at least one way for someone with a soul like hers to cross the barrier—it just wasn't pretty. Yet after hearing Alphys's description of all that dust in the lab... it could've been likely.

He didn't know why he was craving her company, anyway. Maybe it was just that _something different_ she brought to the underground that made him like her. She had just been a novelty, right? It didn't matter that he kind of liked the energy she brought to the bar, or the earnest talks in the forest, or the things she could do in bed...

Sans sighed and scrubbed his face. He was being pathetic. She would yell at him for that, probably, if she were around. "good riddance," he mumbled, thinking back on Malk's words.

Basically, she had just waltzed into town one day and played him and his brother for idiots. Insulted and berated him and his friends constantly. Stole something dark and powerful out of the deepest pocket of his soul, and left an empty space filled with base wanting. Swindled the people of Snowdin out of hundreds of gold. Set into motion a chain of events (merely by _swearing_ ) that wrecked Grillby's, blinded Doggo, knocked down several monsters and got cats banned from town altogether. She was a terrible, remorseless influence on everyone and everything. Sans should be glad she's gone. He should hate her.

He should.

...He didn't know why he didn't.

Even after all that she did, he just wanted to let her go, and wish her well. If they were lucky, they'd never meet again.

But the thing that still bothered him—the one thing that REALLY stuck in his side—was that on top of everything, she had the audacity to say he wasn't funny. For some stupid reason that annoyed him the most.

He stopped pacing at the end of the trail, where the woods met the ruins. Hewn into the impassable stone wall was a massive oaken door that he always found a little fascinating, if imposing. It was forever barred from the ruins' side, and just seemed to exist to look dark and looming, its purple paint fading around carved murals of assorted, unknown monsters. Engraved on the top was the Delta Rune, the commonly-seen emblem of the royal family, and that was as much as Sans could say about it.

He shuffled close to the huge wooden slab and sized it up, scoffing at an insult that was far away yet fresh on his mind.

"tch, weak-ass jokes, huh?"

He'd show her, starting with this door: his best sounding board for a knock-knock joke, yet. He wound up a good, solid fist, and rapped the wood. Enunciating the knock was a formality, but it helped sell the material, he knew.

"knock-knock."

To his amazement, someone answered.

-fin

* * *

A/N: Ah... it's been a ride. I want to thank everyone who read this far, really. Whether you loved it or hated it, it was at least interesting, you gotta admit. A special thanks to everyone who reviewed and offered their opinions and feedback. This whole fic was a character experiment that I never imagined I would have this much fun writing.

Mishu's crazy adventures continue from here in, "The Diary of Doctor LEA," if you like _Chrono Trigger_ and want to check that out on my profile. Or you can check out my animations on youtube (raemyshu).

Until next time~

-the neiphiti dragon


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